Abstract

Objective To measure effective coverage for 11 health interventions in Latin America including the childre?s, women's and adult health, as part of program evaluation. Material and Methods: Interventions were selected; the definitions and calculation methods were harmonized according to the information available to ensure comparability between countries. Results: Chile has better indicators of crude and effective coverage followed by Mexico and Colombia. There are significant gaps between regions, counties or states. Conclusions: The health metric on effective coverage is a sensitive indicator that links three important aspects: Coverage of health interventions, use of health services, and access to such services. Effective coverage is a good tool to evaluate health programs performance, and also provides data of where and to whom the system should address national efforts and resources to achieve the purposes and goals set.