TITLE:
Integrative Review on Primary Health Care Financing in National Health Systems: Ensuring Access and Equity
AUTHORS:
Douglas Graciano da Silva, Áquilas Mendes, Leonardo Carnut
KEYWORDS:
Healthcare Financing, National Health Systems, Access to Health Services, Health Equity, Review
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.12 No.4,
August
26,
2022
ABSTRACT: It identifies what the national and international
scientific literature has made available on the financing of primary health
care (PHC) in national health systems, in terms of expanding access and
ensuring equity. This is an integrative literature review, in which the
research was carried out in the Virtual Health Library (VHL) and PubMed.
Twenty-one publications were analyzed, referring to 16 different countries. The
countries with the highest number of publications were: Australia (4), Brazil
(4) and Cambodia (4), followed by Argentina (2), Colombia (2) and Laos (2), in
addition to another 10 countries with one publication each. The results
indicate that there is not a single possible financing model, as well as there
is no consensus among the authors for the concepts of access and equity. There
is consensus, however, in the belief that PHC should be the guiding strategy of
the care model and should be financed appropriately according to the health
needs of each population. The financing models were summarized as public, based
on taxes, through mandatory social contributions, or through health insurance
in the private system. Additionally, the existence of Health Equity Funds
(HEFs) in Cambodia proves that it is possible to find alternatives to guarantee
access and equity. Each country, in its own way, seeks to guarantee access and
equity in the health of its population. However, despite the guidelines of the
World Health Organization or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with no
consensus between the meaning and measurement of these terms, each country seeks
to solve it in the way that suits you best. Finally, the compiled evidence
allows us to conclude that the topic is very incipient, with a low level of
scientific evidence available (levels 4 and 5).