Objective:

Identify the policies and programs that have managed to reduce catastrophic health spending in low and middle-income countries.

Methods:

A systematic review of publications between January 2013 and December 2017 through a strategy of sequential search with keywords and selection using PICO inclusion criteria. We included experimental, quasi-experimental and other controlled comparison designs.

Results:

We identified 5,668 publications that assess catastrophic expenditures, of which 4,678 were related to different frequent health interventions that act on the financing model, 860 used rigorous methodologies and 443 corresponded to low and middle-income countries. We reviewed titles and abstracts, and 44 publications were pre-selected and extensively revised. We included 8 publications for the analysis: 3 carried out in China, 2 in India, 1 in Lao, 1 in Indonesia and 1 in Mexico. In the impact evaluation, 4 did not show statistically significant variations. Another 4 showed a reduction in catastrophic spending, through different models of public management insurance.

Conclusions:

It is possible to expand the financial protection of the population and avoid catastrophic expenses in the face of diseases, under certain conditions and through specific interventions such as public insurance schemes. The collection of rigorous evidence in scarce and more studies are needed on other models of interventions.

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