Access to public health services in Latin America, A systematic review of the literature. Latin America, A systematic review of the literature 2012-2022

Authors

García Azañedo, Camila Melaní

Ramírez Alvarado, Brenda Gianella

Mendoza Castillo, Álvaro Larry Luis Felipe

Infante Pollack, Wilmer Enrique

Valderrama Puscan, Marlon Walter

Abstract

The notion of a population's level of health is one of the indicators used to know for certain the level of wellbeing of a country's population. The health system is seen as a set of institutions and resources which, through their actions, aim to provide an efficient health service to society. In Latin America, there are limitations that hinder the access of individuals to different health services, shown by socioeconomic, socio-cultural, and demographic barriers, which leads to great inequalities in societies, reflecting a certain degree of precariousness and deterioration of health. The objective of this study is to know the development of access to public health services in Latin America during the last decade, determined under three approaches: socioeconomic, sociocultural, and geographic. The methodology was carried out by means of a systematic review study; to find relevant research, a bibliographic search was conducted in EBSCO, ProQuest, Scopus, among other databases. Initially, 6000 articles were obtained, and then the inclusionexclusion criteria were considered, leaving 50 documents as main articles. The research considers the temporal limitations of the study itself. In conclusion, the Latin American scientific literature shows that access to public health services in the last decade has been involved in a series of factors and barriers that limit the population's access to quality health.