Resource Spotlight: Global Evidence on Inequities in Rural Health Protection
photo by Michael Tsegaye/Save the Children
Inequitable resource-sharing between rural and urban areas resulting in socio-economic differences is a persistent global phenomenon that is particularly apparent in developing countries.
In 2011, 3.1 billion people or 55 per cent of the population in these countries lived in rural areas and many of them experienced poverty and ill-health: 70 percent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people are living in rural areas (IFAD, 2011). Hence, although some 350 million rural people left extreme poverty in the 2000s, poverty remains acute and predominant in rural areas.
A key tool to address these inequities is social protection, such as health protection provided through national health services and national and social health insurance schemes. Against this background, a global political discourse in recent years has focused on achieving universal coverage in social protection, including health protection.
This paper takes a fresh look at data development and applies new methodologies. The assessment presented
cannot fill research gaps within countries, but it seeks to provide a starting point for serious discussion and further research on the issues that leave people in rural areas behind the rest of the world’s population. It presents
for the first time global estimates on rural/urban disparities in access to health-care services.
[adapted from resource]
Please view the report Global Evidence on Inequities in Rural Health Protection.
For more information, please see the Community Interventions, National Policy and Service Delivery subject areas.
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