"Health Systems in Latin-American Countries"

TEMPORELLI, KARINA

Buenos Aires

Otro; Reunión anual de la Asociación Argentina de Economía Política; 2001

AAEP

Latin-America constitutes an heterogeneous group of countries with different social and economic situations. This is particularly relevant in the health sector, in which the indicators exhibit, in values and trends, a wide dispersion. The goal of this work is to analyze the different social and economic contexts of  health systems in a selection of  Latin-Americans countries. First, we analyze the socioeconomic aspect, in the second time the sanitary aspects and finally the health systems and yours reforms. We conclude that most of the differences arise from the underlying differences in expenditures, modes of provision, financing patterns ,and fundamentally, in their organization. However, the interaction of health systems with the entire social and economic environment can not be disregarded. This elementary fact shows that reforms in the system of health will not be enough to improve the quality of  health of the population of those countries. A more general reform is necessary to achieve that goal.