Understanding inequities in health and health systems in Latin America and the Caribbean: a thematic series

Latin America, with its culturally and ethnically diverse populations, its burgeoning economies, high levels of violence, growing political instability, and its striking levels of inequality, is a region that is difficult to define and to understand. The region’s health systems are deeply fragmented and segmented, which poses great challenges related to the provision of quality of care and overall equity levels in health and in Latin American society at large. Market, social, and political forces continue to push towards the poorly regulated privatization of public health care in many countries within the region, in detriment of public healthcare services where management capacities are limited.