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Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt

Universal health coverage (UHC) is the big objective in health policy which several countries are seeking to achieve. Egypt is no different and its endeavors to attain UHC have been going on since the 1960s. This article discusses the status of UHC in Egypt using theories of political science and ec...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fouda, Ayman, Paolucci, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5727010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29276704
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2017.00325
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author Fouda, Ayman
Paolucci, Francesco
author_facet Fouda, Ayman
Paolucci, Francesco
author_sort Fouda, Ayman
collection PubMed
description Universal health coverage (UHC) is the big objective in health policy which several countries are seeking to achieve. Egypt is no different and its endeavors to attain UHC have been going on since the 1960s. This article discusses the status of UHC in Egypt using theories of political science and economics by analyzing the historical transformations in the Egyptian health system and its institutional settings. This article then specifically examines the path dependence theory against the sociopolitical background of Egypt and assesses any pattern between the theory and the current UHC status in Egypt. The important finding of this analysis is that the health policies and reforms in Egypt have been significantly influenced and limited by its historical institutional structure and development. Both the health policies and the institutional settings adopted a dependent path that limited Egypt’s endeavors to achieve the universal coverage. This dependent path also yielded many of the present-day challenges as in the weaknesses of the healthcare financing system and the inability to extend health coverage to the poor and the informal sector. These challenges subsequently had a negative impact on the accessibility of the healthcare services.
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spelling pubmed-57270102017-12-22 Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt Fouda, Ayman Paolucci, Francesco Front Public Health Public Health Universal health coverage (UHC) is the big objective in health policy which several countries are seeking to achieve. Egypt is no different and its endeavors to attain UHC have been going on since the 1960s. This article discusses the status of UHC in Egypt using theories of political science and economics by analyzing the historical transformations in the Egyptian health system and its institutional settings. This article then specifically examines the path dependence theory against the sociopolitical background of Egypt and assesses any pattern between the theory and the current UHC status in Egypt. The important finding of this analysis is that the health policies and reforms in Egypt have been significantly influenced and limited by its historical institutional structure and development. Both the health policies and the institutional settings adopted a dependent path that limited Egypt’s endeavors to achieve the universal coverage. This dependent path also yielded many of the present-day challenges as in the weaknesses of the healthcare financing system and the inability to extend health coverage to the poor and the informal sector. These challenges subsequently had a negative impact on the accessibility of the healthcare services. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5727010/ /pubmed/29276704 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2017.00325 Text en Copyright © 2017 Fouda and Paolucci. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Fouda, Ayman
Paolucci, Francesco
Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title_full Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title_fullStr Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title_full_unstemmed Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title_short Path Dependence and Universal Health Coverage: The Case of Egypt
title_sort path dependence and universal health coverage: the case of egypt
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5727010/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29276704
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2017.00325
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