Inequalities in Unmet Need for Health Services

While reviews of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have demonstrated substantial progress on an overall level, many groups within countries are being left behind. This paper calculates unmet need for medical and public health services by equity groups within countries through use of Demographic and Health Survey data and then estimates the sizes of the efforts needed to remove the inequalities through the Index of Equality Betterment. The analysis covers equity groups defined by ethnicity, gender, age, residence, education and economic status.