The Economic Importance of Self-Care for Attaining Universal Health Coverage

July 31, 2022

As of July 2022, 64.3 million Instagram posts have been made using the hashtag #selfcare. According to the 2021 Google Trends report, the number of searches for "self-care" has more than doubled since 2015. Self-care has become such an important part of the individual lives of citizens. ‍

But can this concept be inculcated in the medical systems of lower middle-income countries to complement their lesser-developed health infrastructure and contribute to the attainment of Universal Health Coverage?

First, what is self-care and how did it become so famous? ‍
Self-care includes all those activities that promote an individual’s overall health so that they can perform their jobs efficiently, prevent disease and cope with illness or disability without the support of a health worker. Its popularity can be attributed to the rise in mental health advocacy on social media. Many social media trends these days encourage us to partake in self-care activities like yoga, exercising, doing altruistic deeds, eating clean foods, meditating, etc. People are adopting self-care practices in their routine to save money on future physician time, and increase their economic productivity and welfare. This article will apply the same theory to people in those countries with lower levels of GDP and household incomes as well as the most limited access to formal healthcare.

‍‍The Radical History of Self-care‍
The term 'self-care' was coined in the 1960s by the Black Panther Party, which was a revolutionary organisation founded in October 1966 in California. The main aim of this group was to spread the ideology of black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. For a long time, activists believed that it didn’t matter if they took care of themselves in terms of what they ate, mental self-care, cultural self-care, and spiritual self-care. But very soon, combating white supremacy, the members of BBP started experiencing activist burnout.

The founders of the Black Panther Party realised that in order for the Black Panthers to keep up their momentum, they had to take care of themselves. Black Panther activists, like Ericka Huggins, encouraged self-care through practicing yoga and meditation. Only by taking care of their physical and mental health were the activists able to propel the movement forward. Thus, since the 20th century, revolutionary movements and organisations have adopted self-care as a means to increase the productivity of members and promote prevention of diseases.

Present-day need for self-care in low-income economies
According to a June 2022 report of World Health Organisation, 1 in 5 of the world’s population are now living in humanitarian crises, in which health systems are challenged to deliver essential health services. In low-income and lower middle income countries like India, the unavailability of a fully-developed health infrastructure increases the risk of numerous health problems and decreases the quality of life. However, adopting sustainable self-care practices can reduce the mortality and morbidities in such countries and improve health and well-being of the citizens. When we talk about inculcating self-care in our state medical institutions, we focus on ‘self-care health interventions’.

‍What are self-care health interventions?‍
According to WHO, Self-care interventions are the “tools which support the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health worker”. Some common examples of self-care interventions include pregnancy tests, over-the-counter availability of some contraceptive products, condoms, lubricants, HIV self-tests and self-monitoring of blood pressure and blood glucose. By 2030, the estimated global shortage of health workers to achieve and sustain Universal Health Coverage is expected to grow to 15 million health workers. Therefore, the self-care intervention tools are the need-of-the-hour in low-income countries which have an under-developed health infrastructure.

Citizens can use self-care interventions for a variety of reasons, including convenience, confidentiality, and cost. This can be especially beneficial for women, people of colour, and members of the LGBTQ community, who face constant stigma and discrimination in medical institutions, particularly when it comes to sexual and reproductive health. For example, access to self-injectable contraception has the potential to reduce unintended pregnancy among the 74 million women and girls living in low and middle-income countries each year. Self-sampling for HPV (the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer) to improve screening can increase the number of new cases detected each year and reduce cervical cancer mortality.

Furthermore, every year, 100 million people are pushed below the poverty line because they have to pay for healthcare out of their own pockets. But, self-care intervention can lead to savings in monetary costs and prevent people from falling into a debt trap through the introduction of self-diagnosis tools for various communicable and non-communicable diseases. Currently, self-care health interventions lead to savings of nearly $120 billion each for global healthcare systems and, therefore, national economies. This amount is predicted to increase by $59 billion in the coming years.

To summarise, Self-care interventions can encourage people to actively participate in their own healthcare, resulting in increased self-determination, self-efficacy, autonomy, and health engagement. If we are to achieve Universal Health Coverage, self-care interventions must work in tandem with formal health systems.

‍
References

‍

Featured Posts:

The Economic Importance of Self-Care for Attaining Universal Health Coverage

‍
References

Featured Posts:

Featured Posts:

The Economic Importance of Self-Care for Attaining Universal Health Coverage

‍References

Featured Posts:

‍
References