Economic evaluation guidelines in Latin America: a current snapshot

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Health Policy
• Latin American Healthcare Systems

Background:

• Developed nations widely use economic evaluation guidelines within their healthcare systems.
• Latin America has historically lacked comprehensive regional guidelines for health economic evaluations.
• The adoption of economic evaluation is a global trend impacting healthcare decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically search for and review existing economic evaluation guidelines in Latin America.
• To compare the identified national guidelines from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.
• To assess the alignment of these regional guidelines with international standards and practices.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a systematic literature search across PubMed, LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature), and gray literature.
• Identified and retrieved national economic evaluation guidelines from Latin American countries.
• Performed a comparative review of the found guidelines, analyzing similarities and differences.

Main Results:

• Four national economic evaluation guidelines were identified: Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.
• Despite some variations, the national guidelines exhibit broad similarities.
• The identified guidelines are largely consistent with international economic evaluation documents.

Conclusions:

• The development of national economic evaluation guidelines signifies a growing trend in Latin America.
• These guidelines, alongside regional experiences, indicate increasing use of economic evaluation in health policy.
• Further monitoring is needed to ascertain the successful implementation of these guidelines for transparent, evidence-based decision-making in the region.