Healthcare Access

Virtual care reduced barriers for people dealing with mental health concerns, anxiety, chronic pain, disability, mobility limitations, and transportation challenges. Virtual appointments enhanced access by saving patients time, energy, transportation costs, and lost income from time away from work. Some patients reported they would not have contacted their provider at all if virtual care had not been available, making virtual care a mechanism for reaching otherwise unreached patients. Virtual care made it easier to include family members and caregivers, particularly those living at a distance. NCD prevention services had dramatically higher unmet needs than SRH services across the six study countries. Substantial variation in unmet health needs exists across the six study countries. People with pain-related disabilities reported unmet healthcare needs at a much higher rate (29.0%) than those without (11.2%). Unexpectedly, people without a regular medical doctor were less likely to report pain-related disability than those with one, and the study did not establish why. In LMICs, hypertension control remains low despite higher awareness and treatment among women than men. Unmet need…