Case study: South Africa

Overview

South Africa is an upper-middle-income country, with some of the world’s widest socioeconomic inequalities. These contribute to poor health outcomes and inequality in access to health care. Poor health in turn aggravates socioeconomic inequalities. Despite spending a relatively large proportion of its GDP on health, the country’s health indicators remain poorer than those of other uppermiddle-countries with similar or lower levels of expenditure.