Global progress towards universal coverage of essential health services, a component of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.8, is measured at the country level using the WHO Service Coverage Index. However, data collection for this crucial metric excludes prisons and youth detention centres, despite the health needs in these settings, chronic underinvestment in custodial health care, and poor health outcomes for people released from custody in most countries. Particularly in countries with high incarceration rates, failure to include custodial settings in calculations of the service coverage index might result in overestimation of progress towards SDG 3.8.1, and mask important health inequalities. In this Viewpoint, we explore how failure to consider custodial settings in calculation of the service coverage index contributes to health inequalities and impedes progress towards SDG 3. We recommend explicitly considering all custodial settings in future estimates of progress towards universal health coverage.

联合国可持续发展目标 (SDG) 3.8 的组成部分——基本卫生服务普遍覆盖的全球进展是使用世卫组织服务覆盖指数在国家层面衡量的。然而，这一关键指标的数据收集不包括监狱和青少年拘留中心，尽管在这些环境中存在健康需求、对羁押医疗保健的长期投资不足以及大多数国家从羁押中释放的人的健康状况不佳。尤其是在监禁率高的国家，如果在计算服务覆盖率指数时未将羁押场所包括在内，可能会导致高估实现可持续发展目标 3.8.1 的进展，并掩盖重要的健康不平等。在这个观点中，