Factors Influencing Women's Access to Healthcare Services: A Literature Review of Selected Countries and Vietnam

The right to access health services is one of the fundamental human rights recognized in international conventions. Many countries around the world, including Vietnam, have been improving their policy systems to create an equal legal environment that strengthens women’s access to health services. However, in many parts of the world, women from disadvantaged groups are often restricted in accessing these rights for various reasons. Many studies have been conducted to understand women’s unmet health care needs and access to health services, as well as solutions that help them access health services more easily. This article focuses on analyzing the factors affecting women’s access to health care services, such as individual factors, interpersonal factors, community-level factors, and system-level factors, through a review of studies in several countries and Vietnam. On this basis, the author proposes several recommendations to strengthen the access of Vietnamese women to health services.