We estimated the prevalence of foregone care and the relative importance of various reported reasons for foregoing care, disaggregated by country income group and region. We used pooled data from phone surveys conducted between April and August 2020, covering 73 638 households in 39 LMICs. However, there are no published studies on the prevalence of foregone healthcare in LMICs during the pandemic. Likely, these risks are greatest in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where health systems are less resilient and economies more fragile.
In addition to the direct health effects of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the pandemic has increased the risks of foregone non-COVID-19 healthcare.