This third edition of Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean, prepared jointly by OECD, the Inter‑American Development Bank and the World Bank, presents a set of key indicators of health status, determinants of health, health data and health system infrastructure, health expenditure and financing, quality of care, health workforce, and ageing across 33 Latin America and the Caribbean countries. Each of the indicators is presented in a user-friendly format, consisting of charts illustrating variations across countries and over time, concise descriptive analyses highlighting the main findings conveyed by the data, and methodological boxes defining the indicators and discussing limitations in data comparability. This edition also includes two thematic chapters focused on issues of particular importance for the region: quality of care, and inequalities in health and healthcare across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026
Abstract
Executive summary
Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 provides a cross-country assessment of health and health system performance in 33 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, combining comparable indicators with thematic analysis of priority policy issues. This edition focusses on two connected challenges: improving quality of care and reducing inequalities in health and healthcare.
The first thematic chapter shows that while many LAC countries have quality strategies, regulations and indicators in place, few have the tools to turn them into better care. The second shows that inequalities remain a key barrier to further health gains. Disadvantaged groups face greater health risks, more barriers to timely care, lower quality, weaker financial protection and poorer outcomes.
The seven data chapters document the broader context in which these challenges are unfolding. Overall, the findings point to a clear policy message: LAC health systems need to shift from expanding coverage to improving performance. The region has built important foundations, but the next phase of reform will depend on making systems more effective, equitable and prepared for ageing, chronic disease and future shocks.
Health outcomes in LAC continue to improve, but progress is no longer closing the gap with OECD countries. Life expectancy reached 74.6 years in 2024, up 2.4 years since 2010, but remained below the OECD average of 81.3 years, ranging from around 81 years in Chile and Costa Rica to fewer than 70 in Haiti and Bolivia. Infant mortality fell by 34.4% between 2010 and 2024 to 14.4 deaths per 1 000 live births, compared with about 4 in the OECD, while under‑5 mortality declined by 43% to 16.3 per 1 000, around three times the OECD level. Further gains will depend less on expanding service contact and more on improving effectiveness, safety and responsiveness of care.
High avoidable mortality rates show where coverage fails to translate into better outcomes. In 2023, avoidable mortality reached 297 deaths per 100 000 population in LAC25, compared with 162 in the OECD. Vaccination remains a relative strength, but weaker acute care and cancer outcomes point to shortcomings in diagnosis, referral, emergency response, specialised treatment and continuity of care. Treatable cancer mortality averaged 19.3 deaths per 100 000 population in LAC26, around 30% above the OECD average, and worsened over the last decade, rising by 1.2 while the OECD average fell by 2.8.
Most countries have built the foundations of quality governance, but implementation remains uneven. Quality is included as a cross-cutting priority in health strategies in 14 of 19 countries, and provider licensing and medicines regulation are reported in 17 of 19. However, only Peru and Chile report fully costed quality implementation plans with monitoring frameworks, suggesting that quality is often recognised as a priority without the budgets and accountability mechanisms needed to change care delivery.
Quality measurement is expanding, but it is weakly linked to accountability and incentives. Many countries report quality indicators, audit systems and clinical guidelines, but only six have comprehensive national quality indicator sets. Quality-linked payment reforms are not implemented nationally in 12 of 19 countries. Accreditation is reported in 9 countries, clinical decision support in 6, and performance‑based financing in 4, pointing to a gap between setting standards and embedding continuous improvement into routine care. Underdeveloped data infrastructure is reported as a barrier by most countries, while standardised patient experience measurement is reported only in Ecuador, Chile and Colombia. Only four countries report standardised coding systems for safety incidents and near misses.
Equity means ensuring effective care, not only access to care. Disadvantaged groups face higher health risks, more barriers to timely care, lower-quality and less continuous care, weaker financial protection and poorer outcomes. Unmet healthcare need averages 25% in the region, ranging from 3.2% in Costa Rica to 73% in Peru. Infant mortality is about three times higher among the poorest than the richest in Peru, around one fourth higher in Haiti, and rural-urban gaps exceed 40% in several countries.
Equity policies still focus more on expanding services than adapting them to underserved groups. Infrastructure expansion is reported by 13 of 14 countries, outreach by 11 and telehealth by 9, but transport support by only 7, bilingual or community staff by 6, and digital inclusion policies by 4. Financial protection also remains incomplete: subsidised or free services are reported by 13 of 14 countries and copayment exemptions by 8, but catastrophic expenditure funds by only 4.
Equity data systems remain too narrow to guide action. All surveyed countries collect disaggregated information on service access and health outcomes, but only 6 of 14 do so for quality of care and only 5 for financial protection. Data systems capture ethnicity in 7 countries, disability in only 1 and migration status in none. Without stronger disaggregation, some of the region’s most vulnerable groups remain policy blind spots.
Expanding health gains will require addressing the new epidemiological reality. Non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and cancers, accounted for 75.9% of all deaths across LAC33 in 2023. Yet progress in reducing major NCD mortality has been much slower than in OECD countries: cardiovascular disease mortality declined by only 4% in LAC25 between 2010 and 2023, compared with 28.4% in the OECD, while cancer mortality declined by 4%, compared with 18% in the OECD.
Infrastructure gaps in LAC extend to both physical and digital capacities: In 2024, LAC countries had 22.6 hospital beds per 10 000 population, compared with 42.0 in the OECD, while hospital discharges in nine reporting countries averaged 5 543 per 100 000 population, against 13 797 in the OECD. Digital systems remain uneven: Costa Rica and Paraguay report near-comprehensive linkage across primary care, hospital, prescribing and mortality datasets, while other countries report more limited linkages, often restricted to hospital-mortality or hospital-prescribing data.
LAC spends much less on health than OECD countries, and a smaller share is financed through pooled public or compulsory schemes. In 2024, current health spending per capita in OECD countries was almost four times that of LAC countries, at USD PPP 6 097 compared with USD PPP 1 518. Health expenditure represented 6.5% of GDP in LAC33, compared with 9.3% in the OECD. Government and compulsory insurance schemes financed 57% of current health expenditure in LAC, compared with around 75% in OECD countries.
High out-of-pocket spending exposes households to financial hardship when care is needed and can limit timely access, especially for poorer groups. Out-of-pocket payments accounted for 32% of current health spending in LAC in 2024, compared with 20% in the OECD. OOP payments represented 4.7% of household final consumption in LAC, above the OECD average of 3.2%, and exceeded 4.5% in Honduras, Suriname, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Chile and Panama.
LAC health systems face major workforce shortages and lack integration between training, deployment, retention and scope‑of-practice. LAC has 2.4 doctors per 1 000 population, compared with 3.6 in the OECD, with a range from 9.5 in Cuba to 0.3 in Haiti. Nurse and midwife density is much lower, at 3.9 per 1 000 population in LAC compared with 10.3 in the OECD. Further, the region is doctor-heavy, with only 1.6 nurses and midwives per doctor, compared with 2.9 in the OECD. Training pipelines also remain uneven: while the number of medical graduates is close to the OECD average, nurse graduate output is half the OECD average.
Population ageing will sharply increase demand for health and long-term care. The share of people aged 65 and over in LAC is projected to almost double, from 9.3% in 2023 to 18.1% in 2050, while the share aged 80 and over is projected to rise from 1.8% to 4.9%. The region relies on ~25 million unpaid caregivers compared with about 3 million paid caregivers; maintaining current care ratios would require around 60.5 million unpaid caregivers by 2050.
