Universal Health Coverage (UHC)

The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Dataset, jointly produced by the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), includes two key indicators used to track Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 3.8 on Universal Health Coverage, which aims to “achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services, and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.”

Indicator 3.8.1, the UHC service coverage index (WHO custodian), measures coverage of essential health services using 14 tracer indicators across four domains: reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health; infectious diseases; noncommunicable diseases; and service capacity and access. The index ranges from 0 to 100 and is reported along with its four sub-indices corresponding to these domains.

Indicator 3.8.2, the financial hardship indicator (co-custodians: the World Bank and WHO), measures the proportion of the population who face financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health expenditure. This can be decomposed into two mutually exclusive categories: the proportion of the population with impoverishing out-of-pocket health expenditure and the proportion with large but non-impoverishing out-of-pocket health expenditure.

Together, these indicators track both service coverage and financial hardship under UHC.

The dataset also includes the old financial hardship indicator which measures the proportion of the population spending more than 10% or 25% of household consumption or income on out-of-pocket health expenditure (catastrophic health spending). This was the SDG indicator 3.8.2 between 2017 and 2025.