Incorporating health inequality impact into economic evaluation in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: As well as improving population health, promoting equity in health is one of the key goals of health policy in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, it is less clear how equity is defined, or how it may impact on resource allocation decisions. We investigated the degree to which health inequalities have been considered in economic evaluation of health interventions in LMICs, and what demographic or socioeconomic characteristics were used to define equity relevant subgroups.

Areas covered: We reviewed publications since 2010 from three main databases following the search strategy developed by including the key terms 'health inequalities/health disparities/health equity,' 'economics' and 'low- and middle-income countries' in the title or abstract. Twelve studies were identified, mainly focusing on interventions for the more vulnerable groups such as children and women.

Expert opinion: Some attempts have been made to assess interventions' impact on health inequality and there is increasing interest in evaluating it, although research in this area is lacking. Population subgroups highlighted in the included studies were those differing in socioeconomic status. Most studies reported the results across subgroups to illustrate inequality impact, and the newly developed methods, extended cost-effectiveness analysis and distributional cost-effectiveness analysis, have also been applied.

Keywords: Economic evaluation; health inequality; low- and middle-income countries; public health; systematic review.