Monitoring universal health coverage within the Sustainable Development Goals: development and baseline data for an index of essential health services

BackgroundAchieving universal health coverage, including quality essential service coverage and financial protection for all, is target 3.8 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). As a result, an index of essential health service coverage indicators was selected by the UN as SDG indicator 3.8.1. We have developed an index for measuring SDG 3.8.1, describe methods for compiling the index, and report baseline results for 2015.Methods16 tracer...