Harvard University Helps Power Seguro Popular Health Care Initiative in Mexico Harvard University
go to original January 31, 2015

Just a decade ago, half of all Mexicans — 52 million people — had no health insurance. As many as 4 million families a year faced financial ruin because of catastrophic illness, like breast cancer.

Today, those same families have access to treatment because of Seguro Popular. The universal health care initiative, launched in 2003 and largely powered by Harvard research, is funded with less than 1 percent of the country’s GDP. It has gradually expanded to cover a range of catastrophic illnesses. Breast cancer, with its fast-rising rates and ever-younger victims, was added in 2007.

Good thing. Around the same time, breast cancer replaced cervical cancer as the No. 1 killer of women 30 to 54. To make matters worse, before 2007 about 30 percent of breast-cancer patients dropped out of treatment because they ran out of money. That figure has fallen to less than 1 percent.

The Harvard research behind Seguro Popular is part of a synergy that University experts call “evidence-based advocacy.” The idea: Good deeds and good policy in public health are driven by good data.

“Evidence makes visible the invisible,” said Julio Frenk, the chief architect of Seguro Popular.

Read the rest at Harvard University

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!