Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

Universal Health Coverage: Challenges, Measurements and Evaluation strategies

Exploratory Workshop Date: Thursday, September 13, 2012
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge (directions)

Overview and goals of the workshop: 

The workshop is dedicated to promoting scientific discussion on universal health coverage in resource-poor settings in terms of its challenges, measurements, and evaluation strategies. It will have three themes: (1) univ health care (children-chronic-disease.jpg)global progress in achieving universal health coverage, (2) measurement errors in estimating universal financial risk protection, and (3) performance evaluation of universal health care. Presentations on the first theme will provide information on global progress, country practices and challenges in achieving universal health coverage. Presentations on the second theme will focus on methodological issues in measuring the progress of universal health coverage, particularly on the coverage of financial risk. The effect of non-sampling errors, resulting from household survey design, on estimating universal financial risk protection will be explored. The third theme will cover the methods that can be used to evaluate the efficiency of a universal health coverage program.

Faculty Convener:
Chunling Lu, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Agenda
9:00-9:20: Introduction
9:30-11:00: “Global perspective: strategies, practices, and challenges in achieving universal health coverage” presented by Tessa Tan-Torres Edejer, Coordinator, Unit of Costs, Effectiveness, Expenditure and Priority Setting, Department of Health Systems Financing in the Cluster on Health Systems and Services at the World Health Organization
11:00-11:10: Break
11:10-12:40: “Country case: strategies, practices, and challenges in achieving universal health coverage” presented by Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Minister of Health, Rwanda (via videoconference)
12:40-1:30: Lunch
1:30-3:00: “Measuring universal financial risk protection” presented by Dr. Chunling Lu, Assistant Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
3:00-3:15: Break
3:15-4:45: “Evaluation of universal health coverage” presented by Peter Smith, Professor of Health Policy and co-director of the Centre for Health Policy in the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London
4:45-5:00: Conclusion

Speakers and participants:
-Chunling Lu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
-Agnes Binagwaho, MD, Minister of Health in Rwanda and Senior Lecturer of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School (via videoconference)
-Tessa Tan-Torres Edejer, MD, Coordinator, Unit of Costs, Effectiveness, Expenditure and Priority Setting, Department of Health Systems Financing in the Cluster on Health Systems and Services at the World Health Organization
-Peter Smith, Professor of Health Policy and co-director of the Centre for Health Policy in the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London

PUBLICATIONS relevant to this workshop:

This workshop will be open to the Harvard Community (faculty, researchers, fellows, and students). As seating is quite limited, we ask you to RSVP with your name and Harvard affiliation to Laura Price at lprice@hsph.harvard.edu. Once seating runs out, you will be put on the waiting list.