Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The UHC Compendium is a database of health services and intersectoral interventions recommended for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). It also provides a strategic way to organize and present information and creates a framework to think about health services and health interventions. The database for the Compendium spans the full spectrum promotive, preventive, resuscitative, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative services, as well as a full complement of intersectoral interventions. The Compendium will provide rapid one-stop access to supporting evidence, associated human and material resource inputs, and feedback on cost impact as interventions are selected. The UHC Compendium database can feed into multiple tools that serve a variety of use cases at global, country and sub-national levels.

Version 1.0 of the Compendium focuses on clinical health services and includes a list of over 3500 health actions across different health areas. The health actions can be grouped dynamically into categories such as health programs, life-course stage, and SDG goals. This version of the database provides a global reference point for organizing and presenting information on health interventions for UHC.

In UHC Compendium v1.0, users can access a comprehensive list of around 3500 actions for clinical services. The Compendium website has an interactive database, which allows users to filter for health actions supported by WHO’s Guideline Review Committee and other WHO guidance easily in one place. Users can also filter the intervention list by program areas to view the health actions. For example, the Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI) may filter health actions relevant to immunization to see the relevant health actions for immunizations in a table. Thus, users can refer to the UHC Compendium as a global resource to inform any assessment around which services to consider for provision within their system.

Essential service packages vary across countries depending on current capacity, resource availability, and priorities. Expanding service provision in the context of UHC may entail starting with a smaller guaranteed package and then expanding the number of services covered.

The UHC Compendium website includes guidance documents on how to prioritize between health actions for package development. Guidance has been developed in collaboration with health experts in health technology assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis and provides details on the package development process. The final product for the Compendium will include information on costs, cost-effectiveness, links to burden of disease and resource requirements, to help countries prioritize action within their budget constraints.

WHO provides guidance and tools to support priority setting and planning within a local context. See https://www.who.int/teams/health-systems-governance-and-financing/economic-analysis

This may be for a number of reasons: (i) WHO may have examined the evidence for the intervention but a decision was made not to recommend it (ii) WHO may have recommended the intervention a long time ago but has not issued recent recommendations (iii) WHO has not yet examined the evidence base for the intervention (iv) the intervention is considered a policy or system level investment and is thus not covered directly in the Compendium database, but will be included in the accompanying inventory on facility and system investments.

The data within the Compendium will be updated on a regular basis to reflect updates in WHO published recommendations on interventions, to ensure the most up to date information is reflected.

WHO produces different types of guidance documents. The Guidelines review committee (GRC) and its Secretariat support guideline developers and ensure the quality of a certain type of guidance document produced by WHO, via an internal, peer-review process.  In addition, WHO produces a wide range of publications that contain guidance on clinical and public health interventions and policies, many of which are not suitable for review by the GRC.  When such guidance is linked to an intervention in the Compendium it is referred to as “other WHO reference documents”  within the database .  The importance of an intervention is not determined by the type of guidance document listed in the Compendium. Rather, Member States should select interventions prioritized to their needs, from across the items in the Compendium. 

When WHO has not published specific guidance on a listed intervention , the intervention has the label “Reference status pending”.  This means that the intervention is considered important to include, but there is currently no WHO guidance published. 

The current version of the database includes selected information on intervention tags, target populations and service delivery platforms. WHO is currently working to expand the database both in terms of breadth (number of interventions) and depth (information shown for each intervention). Updates will be published later in 2021.

Please follow the following information to cite the Compendium: UHC Compendium(Internet), World Health Organization. Available from --- www.who.int/universal-health-coverage/compendium. Accessed on [Date].

How can I share feedback on the UHC Compendium?

Any individual wishing to share feedback and comments can use the feedback survey on the UHC Compendium website to provide their inputs. Alternatively, you can also reach out to us at uhcCompendium@who.int.