Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026

Reader’s guide

Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 is a joint publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB). This report was co‑ordinated by Frederico Guanais and Nicolas Larrain from the OECD, Sebastian Bauhoff from the IDB and Cristian A. Herrera, Nicole Feune de Colombi and Jeremy Veillard from the WB. Chapter 1 was co‑authored by Nicole Feune de Colombi, Cristian A. Herrera, Denizhan Duran, Renzo Calderon and Jeremy Veillard from the WB and Niek Klazinga and Nicolás Larraín from the OECD. Chapter 2 was co‑authored by Sebastian Bauhoff, William Savedoff and Laura Goyeneche from the IDB and Ángel González from the OECD. Chapters 3 to 9 were co‑authored by Ángel González, Frederico Guanais, Nicolas Larrain and Berta Piqué-Smith from the OECD. The authors would like to thank Mark Pearson, and Francesca Colombo from the OECD Directorate of Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, Javier Guzman and Ferdinando Regalia from the Inter-American Development Bank and Michele Gragnolati and Jaime Saavedra from the World Bank.

We would also like to thank Lucy Hulett for editorial input, and Guillaume Haquin for resource management support.

This report has benefitted from the expertise and generous contribution of supporting materials from multiple members of international organisations working in healthcare in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as the World Health Organization and its regional office for the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization. In particular, the authors would like to thank Dr. Eduardo Benjamín Puertas, Dr. Ana Paula Cavalcante, and María Isabel Duré for their insightful exchanges during the elaboration of this report.

This report has benefited from comments, reviews, and the provision of data through questionnaires by countries included in Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026. In that sense, the authors would like to thank Dr. Francisco Oviedo, and officials from Ministries of Health who co‑operated to this report.

Structure of the publication

Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 is divided into nine chapters:

Chapter 1 on Quality of care in Latin America and the Caribbean examines the policy and institutional arrangements that shape healthcare quality in 19 countries. It is structured around six domains: governance, external assurance, evidence‑based care, workforce capability, patient safety, and integrated and people‑centred care. Drawing on internationally comparable indicators and a dedicated OECD policy survey on quality of care, the chapter provides a detailed stocktake of regulatory, measurement and financing arrangements, and identifies policy options to support more resilient, equitable and high-performing health systems.

Chapter 2 on Inequalities in health and healthcare analyses persistent gaps across population groups in exposure to health risks, access to and quality of care, financial protection and health outcomes, by income, education, place of residence, ethnicity, gender, age, migration status, disability and health system affiliation. Drawing on regional evidence, a dedicated OECD policy survey, and additional country profiles compiled by the OECD Secretariat, it reviews how countries are responding through policies on governance, financing, service delivery, workforce, digital health, data systems and emergency preparedness.

Chapter 3 on Health status highlights variations across countries in life expectancy at birth and survival to age 65, infant and neonatal mortality, under-five and adolescent mortality, and all-cause mortality, as well as the leading specific causes of death and morbidity – including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, injuries, maternal mortality, mental health, tuberculosis, mosquito-borne diseases and diabetes.

Chapter 4 on Determinants of health focusses on non-medical determinants of health. It features family planning, child malnutrition, and adolescent health, together with lifestyle and behavioural indicators such as overweight and obesity in adults, diet and nutrition, and tobacco use. It also covers water and sanitation, road safety, and environmental and climate risks.

Chapter 5 on Health data and health system infrastructure reviews the availability, digitalisation and interoperability of patient care data, including the use of electronic health record systems and patient access to their own information, alongside countries’ capacities for the secondary use of data. It then presents indicators on the infrastructure and provision of services for hospital care, pregnancy and birth, and child healthcare.

Chapter 6 on Health expenditure and financing examines trends in health spending across LAC countries. It looks at how health services and goods are paid for, and the mix between government and compulsory insurance schemes, voluntary private schemes, direct out-of-pocket payments by households and external resources. It also assesses financial protection, including the share of household consumption absorbed by out-of-pocket and voluntary health spending.

Chapter 7 on Quality of care builds on the OECD Health Care Quality and Outcomes (HCQO) framework to examine the performance of health systems across LAC. It covers avoidable mortality (preventable and treatable), childhood vaccination coverage, avoidable hospital admissions for chronic conditions, in-hospital case fatality after acute myocardial infarction and stroke, cancer care outcomes, and patient safety and safe prescribing, including antimicrobial consumption.

Chapter 8 on Health workforce examines the supply of doctors, nurses and midwives, as well as allied health professionals such as dentists, pharmacists and physiotherapists. It also covers community health workers and environmental and occupational health personnel, and reports on the output of medical and nursing graduates and the stock of LAC-trained doctors and nurses working in OECD countries.

Chapter 9 on Ageing exhibits the demographic trends in LAC, both current and projected, as well as life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at age 60. Long-term care is also highlighted, with indicators on the drivers of care needs and system response, paid and unpaid caregivers, caregiver training and time burden, and mortality due to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Latin America and the Caribbean countries

For this third edition of Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026, 33 regional countries were included as seen in Table 1. Countries were selected based on their geographical location to either Latin America or the Caribbean, and if they are sovereign states.

Table 1. Latin American and Caribbean countries included and their ISO codes

Country	ISO Code	Country	ISO Code
Antigua and Barbuda	ATG	Guyana	GUY
Argentina	ARG	Haiti	HTI
Bahamas	BHS	Honduras	HND
Barbados	BRB	Jamaica	JAM
Belize	BLZ	Mexico	MEX
Bolivia	BOL	Nicaragua	NIC
Brazil	BRA	Panama	PAN
Chile	CHL	Paraguay	PRY
Colombia	COL	Peru	PER
Costa Rica	CRI	Saint Kitts and Nevis	KNA
Cuba	CUB	Saint Lucia	LCA
Dominica	DMA	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (St. Vincent and the Grenadines)	VCT
Dominican Republic	DOM	Suriname	SUR
Ecuador	ECU	Trinidad and Tobago	TTO
El Salvador	SLV	Uruguay	URY
Grenada	GRD	Venezuela	VEN
Guatemala	GTM

Selection and presentation of indicators

The indicators have been selected based on being relevant to monitoring health systems performance, considering the availability and comparability of existing data in the LAC region. The publication takes advantage of the routine administrative and programme data collected by the World Health Organization, the World Bank Group, and the OECD, as well as special country population surveys collecting demographic and health information.

The indicators are presented in the form of easy-to-read figures and explanatory text. Each of the topics covered in this publication is presented over two pages. The first page defines the indicator, provides brief commentary highlighting the key findings conveyed by the data, and provides a few key references. On the facing page is a set of figures. These typically show current levels of the indicator and, where possible, trends over time. In some cases, an additional figure relating the indicator to another variable is included. Where an OECD or LAC average is included in a figure, it is the unweighted average of the countries presented, unless otherwise specified. The number of countries included in the regional averages is represented by the number accompanying “OECD” or “LAC” (e.g. LAC15 represents the average of 15 LAC countries with available data).

Limitations in data comparability are indicated both in the text (in the box related to “Definition and comparability”) as well as in footnotes to figures.

Health and health system’s situation can evolve rapidly, arguably even more so in low and middle‑income countries than in high-income ones. Therefore, it is important to note that some indicators might not reflect the latest situation for some countries. The authors have collected the latest available data so the landscape depicted in each chapter and section of the publication shows the most updated scenario as possible.

For Chapter 3, on Health Status, mortality data are drawn from two complementary sources: the WHO Mortality Database, which is based on measured data and is therefore prioritised, and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which provides modelled estimates. Where the classification of causes of death is readily comparable between ICD‑10 and the GBD cause list, both sources are presented for completeness.

Building on these sources, population denominators used to calculate mortality rates come from the UN World Population Prospects (various editions), using mid-year estimates. Mortality rates by age interval are age‑standardised for comparability, unless stated otherwise, using a standard population that reflects the 2022 age distribution of the four OECD LAC countries, a structure that is both demographically representative of Latin America and the Caribbean and consistent with OECD reporting. This standard population was also used for non-disease specific indicators in Chapter 7. For sex-specific analysis, age‑specific mortality rates are calculated separately for men and women and standardised using the same set of weights.

Indicators from LAC countries that are OECD Member or partner countries

Four LAC countries are OECD Member states: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico. Argentina, Brazil and Peru are currently in the process of accession to the OECD. The OECD average is calculated as the unweighted average of all OECD Member countries with available data for the indicator (not only the four LAC OECD Members: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico), regardless of whether individual country values are displayed in the figure.

Policy surveys informing Chapters 1 and 2

Chapters 1 and 2 draw on two dedicated OECD policy surveys carried out for this edition of Health at a Glance: Latin America and the Caribbean 2026. These surveys were designed to complement internationally comparable quantitative indicators with structured information on policy, governance and institutional arrangements across countries.

Chapter 1 draws on the OECD Health at a Glance Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 Survey of Quality of Care Policies, administered online between October 2025 and February 2026 to ministry of health officials participating in the publication. Twelve countries responded directly: Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Grenada, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia. The survey covered institutional and policy arrangements to support quality of care, including governance, regulation, workforce certification, accreditation, clinical guidelines, health technology assessment, audit and performance review, financial incentives, patient safety, infection control, patient experience, and selected health data sources and indicators. Additional country profiles were compiled by the OECD Secretariat for the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, using public sources and interviews with experts.

Chapter 2 draws on the Health at a Glance Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 Survey of Inequality and Inequity in Healthcare Policies, administered online between October 2025 and February 2026 to ministry of health officials participating in the publication. Six countries responded directly: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. The survey covered how countries address health inequities through policy, governance and operational practice, including laws, strategies, financing arrangements, data collection and disaggregation, monitoring and evaluation, digital health capabilities, targeted interventions for disadvantaged populations, and intersectoral action. Additional country profiles were compiled by the OECD Secretariat for the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama using public sources and interviews with experts.