This book traces the origins of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the broader context of universalism since the beginning of the 20th century.

UHC aims to improve access to essential health services, provide financial protection and overcome health care inequities.

Drawing on rich first-hand data, including expert interviews and archival research, this book adopts a historical-sociological methodology to analyse some of UHC's key political dynamics: consensus, conflicts, negotiations and struggles. It reveals that UHC is the result of a unique conjoining of movements in health, debates on human rights and concerns with development in a particular world context across the global North and global South.

Tuba I Agartan is Professor of Health Sciences at Providence College, US. Her research interests are at the interface of public policy and sociology, with a focus on comparative health policy, development studies and global health.

Introduction: Foundations and Horizons of Universal Health Coverage

1. Studying Health, Health Systems, and Universalism

2. Tracing Conceptions of Health and Universalism Amid World Transformations (1920-60)

3. The Period of Alternatives: the NIEO and the Basic Needs Approach (1960-79)

4. Clues for Convergence: Neoliberal Adjustment (1979-98)

5. New Goals, Dynamic Agendas, and the Conjoining of Movements in Universal Health Coverage

6. From Cube to Umbrella: UHC's Path to the SDGs

7. UHC and Universalism in Health: Horizons

Conclusion: Foundations and Horizons