Criteria for the procedural fairness of health financing decisions: a scoping review

Health Policy and Planning · 9 authors, 9 centres

AI SUMMARY

FIDELITY 100%

This summary was generated by AI from a single paper. It has not been reviewed by a clinician and is not clinical advice. Verify against the source before acting on it.

AGENT 01 · STRUCTURED SUMMARY

TRACE TO SOURCE

“

TL;DR

This scoping review synthesized literature from multiple disciplines to identify and propose 10 criteria for evaluating the procedural fairness of health financing decisions aimed at achieving universal health coverage.

Full summary

1,031 CHARS

The study is a scoping review that synthesizes literature across health financing, political theory, public administration, public finance, and social psychology. It identifies key features of procedural fairness and their empirical applications. The central result is the proposal of 10 criteria, which represent an adjustment to the existing A4R framework, emphasizing criteria like equality, impartiality, participation, and inclusiveness, all underpinned by the concept of reason-giving. The review highlights that procedural fairness requires a comprehensive evaluation of all criteria together, and that technical decisions still benefit from public reasoning for legitimacy. Limitations include that the search strategy may not have captured all relevant literature and the research team lacked direct expertise in some informed areas like participatory budgeting. The implications are that the criteria can guide policy makers in building fairer decision-making processes for health financing and universal health coverage.

STUDY TYPE

systematic_review

SPECIALTY

public health

SUMMARISED BY

AI pipeline

FIDELITY CHECK

100% · A

ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10645052

Criteria for the procedural fairness of health financing decisions: a scoping review

Health Policy and Planning

READ THE FULL PAPER

ABSTRACT

Abstract Due to constraints on institutional capacity and financial resources, the road to universal health coverage (UHC) involves difficult policy choices. To assist with these choices, scholars and policy makers have done extensive work on criteria to assess the substantive fairness of health financing policies: their impact on the distribution of rights, duties, benefits and burdens on the path towards UHC. However, less attention has been paid to the procedural fairness of health financing decisions. The Accountability for Reasonableness Framework (A4R), which is widely applied to assess procedural fairness, has primarily been used in priority-setting for purchasing decisions, with revenue mobilization and pooling receiving limited attention. Furthermore, the sufficiency of the A4R framework’s four criteria (publicity, relevance, revisions and appeals, and enforcement) has been questioned. Moreover, research in political theory and public administration (including deliberative democracy), public finance, environmental management, psychology, and health financing has examined the key features of procedural fairness, but these insights have not been synthesized into a comprehensive set of criteria for fair decision-making processes in health financing. A systematic study of how these criteria have been applied in decision-making situations related to health financing and in other areas is also lacking. This paper addresses these gaps through a scoping review. It argues that the literature across many disciplines can be synthesized into 10 core criteria with common philosophical foundations. These go beyond A4R and encompass equality, impartiality, consistency over time, reason-giving, transparency, accuracy of information, participation, inclusiveness, revisability and enforcement. These criteria can be used to evaluate and guide decision-making processes for financing UHC across different country income levels and health financing arrangements. The review also presents examples of how these criteria have been applied to decisions in health financing and other sectors. Keywords: Health financing, accountability, equity, policy process, participation

CITATION EXPORT

Elina Dale, Elizabeth F Peacocke, Espen Movik et al.. Criteria for the procedural fairness of health financing decisions: a scoping review. Health Policy and Planning. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad066

AUTHORS

9 · 9 CENTRES

Elina Dale, Elizabeth F Peacocke, Espen Movik, Alex Voorhoeve, Trygve Ottersen, Christoph Kurowski, David B Evans, Ole Frithjof Norheim, Unni Gopinathan

1 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Sandakerveien 24C, Oslo 0473, Norway
2 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Sandakerveien 24C, Oslo 0473, Norway
3 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Sandakerveien 24C, Oslo 0473, Norway
4 Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK
5 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Sandakerveien 24C, Oslo 0473, Norway
6 Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank Group, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA
7 Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank Group, 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA
8 Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting (BCEPS), University of Bergen, Årstadveien 21, Bergen 5018, Norway
9 Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Sandakerveien 24C, Oslo 0473, Norway