Forgone health care during the COVID-19 pandemic: 2020 and 2021 survey trends from 25 Developing Countries
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, health system disruptions, fear of becoming infected with COVID-19, mobility restrictions and lockdowns, and reduced household incomes likely contributed to households forgoing needed health care. Using repeated measures collected with a standardized instrument over two time periods in 25 countries and roughly 63,000 households, this analysis documents how the prevalence of forgone health care and its drivers changed between the early period of the pandemic in 2020 and the first half of 2021. In 2020, in the pooled sample, 17.9 percent of households reported not being able to obtain needed health care. Reported prevalence of forgone care was 15.6 percent in low-income countries (LICs), 17.0 percent in lower-middle income countries (LMICs), and 20.5 percent in upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) included in the sample. In early 2021, the prevalence of forgone care was lower: 10.3 percent of the households in the pooled sample that reported needing care were not able to obtain it.
