This second edition of Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean, prepared jointly by OECD and the World Bank, presents a set of key indicators of health status, determinants of health, healthcare resources and utilisation, healthcare expenditure and financing, quality of care, health workforce, and ageing across 33 Latin America and the Caribbean countries.

The 2024 edition of Government at a Glance Latin America and the Caribbean provides the latest available evidence on public administrations and their performance in the LAC region and compares it to OECD countries.

This document presents the OECD’s renewed health system performance assessment framework. It incorporates new performance dimensions, notably people-centredness, resilience, and environmental sustainability, and places increased emphasis on addressing inequalities, including those related to gender.

In 2021, over 350 000 individuals died from tobacco use and second-hand smoke in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Over 40% of respiratory cancers in LAC were attributable to tobacco use, and the smoking-attributable medical costs can reach up to 1.5% of GDP per year. The total social and economic costs of tobacco use significantly outweigh the tobacco tax revenue that is raised. The OECD Report “Tobacco Taxation in Latin America and the Caribbean” finds that countries in LAC have significant scope to improve the effectiveness of their tobacco tax policies and administration in order to reduce the prevalence and societal costs of tobacco use. The Report examines the trends and effects of tobacco consumption, analyses tobacco tax revenue, provides an extensive overview of tobacco tax policy design in the region, discusses the need for tobacco tax reform and offers tobacco tax policy recommendations. The Report also provides detailed information on tobacco taxation in 18 countries in LAC (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay).

In June 2022, the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, thereby eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. As a result, authority now resides with individual states to regulate abortion access. Currently, abortion is banned in several states, severely restricted in some, and protected in others. While the impact of the Dobbs decision has yet to be fully realized, it has severe implications for sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice, population health, and health equity nationally and globally. The impact of the ruling is expected to exacerbate existing health disparities and produce new inequities in sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes, disproportionately affecting pregnant people who are already minoritized or disenfranchised (e.g., people of color, people with low incomes, young people, people living in rural areas, immigrants, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, justice-involved, and unhoused communities) living in states where abortion access has been banned or restricted. This Research Topic aims to elucidate actual short-term, potential long-term, global, and domestic health inequities produced by the Dobbs decision, and to describe efforts and interventions designed and undertaken to reduce health impacts and inequities in advance or directly after the decision. Recent data from countries that have restricted access to abortion over the past 30 years reveal that such laws actually increase rates of unsafe abortion, which in many instances leads to pregnant people becoming severely ill or dying from preventable causes. In an era of maternal health crisis for people of color in the U.S. and other disadvantaged populations around the world, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. will have a reactionary impact on underserved and minoritized groups everywhere. The implications will be felt globally as the Dobbs decision has triggered the development of restrictive policies increasing inequalities by social and demographic characteristics. Many groups disproportionately experience social disadvantage, yielding socially distributed negative exposures including severely limited access to care. The goal of the article collection is to identify threats to, results of, and protections against inequities in reproductive health, rights, and justice. Devoting a Special Issue to this topic brings vital and robust discourse about reproductive justice and health inequity to the forefront of public health.

This publication explores the policy options to finance more resilient health systems whilst maintaining fiscal sustainability. It finds that the scale of the additional health financing needs requires ambitious and transformative policy changes.

In the field of health, digital health has assumed significant importance in recent years due to its contribution to enhancing the overall healthcare system performance in terms of alleviating the ever-growing pressure on the healthcare system, reducing healthcare costs, improving working conditions and job satisfaction of health professionals, improving patients’ satisfaction, and providing a holistic view of patient health through access to data and giving patients more control over their health. Therefore, it is of vital importance to understand the overwhelming possibilities and promise it can offer for better health services. Similarly, exploring barriers to digital health engagement is an important tool to guarantee an effective adoption and transition that can meet all healthcare stakeholders’ objectives. Integrating Digital Health Strategies for Effective Administration explores recent writings and original research findings in the field of digital health with a special focus on digital health adoption strategies and challenges. This book is intellectually situated between digital health management and digital health technologies. Covering topics such as digital health literacy, machine learning, and procedural law, this premier reference source is an essential resource for app developers, healthcare administrators, healthcare professionals, students and educators of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

Health at a Glance provides a comprehensive set of indicators on population health and health system performance across OECD members and key emerging economies. These cover health status, risk factors for health, access to and quality of healthcare, and health system resources. Analysis draws from the latest comparable official national statistics and other sources.