Comparison of essential medicines lists in 137 countries.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To compare the medicines included in national essential medicines lists with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Model list of essential medicines, and assess the extent to which countries' characteristics, such as WHO region, size and health care expenditure, account for the differences.

Methods

We searched the WHO's Essential Medicines and Health Products Information Portal for national essential medicines lists. We compared each national list of essential medicines with both the 2017 WHO model list and other national lists. We used linear regression to determine whether differences were dependent on WHO Region, population size, life expectancy, infant mortality, gross domestic product and health-care expenditure.

Findings

We identified 137 nati

SUBMITTER: Persaud N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6560372 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature