Global, regional and national availability of essential medicines for children, 2009-2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Access to essential medicines is a vital component of universal health coverage. The low availability of essential medicines for children (EMC) has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to issue a number of resolutions calling on member states on its improvement. But its global progress has been unclear. We aimed to systematically evaluate the progress of availability of EMC over the past decade across economic regions and countries.

Methods

We searched eight databases from inception to December 2021 and reference lists to identify included studies. Two reviewers independently conducted literature screening, data extraction and quality evaluation. This study was registered with PROSPERO, CRD42022314003.

Results

Overall, 22 cross-sectional studies covering

SUBMITTER: Shi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10280921 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature