The ‘Health Transformation Plan’ in Iran: A policy to achieve universal health coverage in slums and informal settlement areas

Universal health coverage (UHC) is one of the strategies that health decision‐ and policy‐makers worldwide are implementing to guarantee a good health status to everyone. Living in slums is characterized by several issues, including homelessness and malnutrition, environmental challenges, lack of sa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The International journal of health planning and management 2021-03, Vol.36 (2), p.267-272
Main Authors: Behzadifar, Masoud, Saran, Maryam, Behzadifar, Meysam, Martini, Mariano, Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access
Drinking water
Economic problems
Elderly women
equity
Expenditures
Financial support
Ghettos
Health
Health indicators
Health insurance
Health planning
Health services
Health status
health transformation plan
Homeless people
Homelessness
Indicators
Insurance coverage
Job insecurity
Job security
Malnutrition
Mothers
Older people
Policy making
Public finance
Sanitation
slum
Slums
Suburban areas
Suburbs
Transformation
universal health coverage
Waste disposal
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Summary:Universal health coverage (UHC) is one of the strategies that health decision‐ and policy‐makers worldwide are implementing to guarantee a good health status to everyone. Living in slums is characterized by several issues, including homelessness and malnutrition, environmental challenges, lack of sanitation and access to safe, healthy drinking water, waste disposal problems, widespread social disruptions, job insecurity, feelings of dissatisfaction and inadequacy. In Iran, the ‘Health Transformation Plan’ (HTP), despite its weaknesses, has had good effects on the health level of people living in slums, ensuring insurance coverage and reducing many economic, social and cultural problems, with a dramatic decline in out‐of‐pocket expenditures. Good governmental financial support and an adequate revision of the initial packages of health services and provisions have resulted in a higher access rate to healthcare. The HTP has been, indeed, a major step towards reaching UHC in Iran. If policy‐ and decision‐makers can further improve the present situation and provide more and better‐quality services to these people, it can be expected that health indicators in suburbs will be significantly improved. Researchers should monitor the impact of HTP and examine its effects on health indicators, specifically among particularly vulnerable groups such as children, women and the elderly.
ISSN:0749-6753
1099-1751
DOI:10.1002/hpm.3082