A muchos pacientes se les niega el acceso a los servicios de salud y a los medicamentos en América Latina, por lo que los jueces tienen que intervenir. Esta tendencia de judicialización se ha acelerado durante la última década. En un sentido similar, la literatura existente sobre la justiciabilidad y judicialización del derecho a la salud se ocupa de la cuestión de si los jueces deben intervenir o no en la protección del derecho a la salud. Objetivo: Evaluar los desafíos derivados del litigio del Derecho a la Salud en Colombia, Argentina, Brasil y México. Metodología: Marco analítico y metodológico cualitativo, descriptivo y comparativo. Incluye una revisión bibliográfica y 37 entrevistas semiestructuradas a jueces, académicos y funcionarios gubernamentales. Además, se realizó un análisis jurisprudencial de la jurisprudencia más reciente en los 4 países mediante análisis de contenido. Resultados: En los cuatro países estudiados persiste un enfoque moderado orientado a las repercusiones en el litigio y, preocupado por las consecuencias del proceso de judicialización. Esto supone, en primer lugar, la incorporación de algunos límites y condiciones en el reconocimiento del derecho a la salud por parte de los Tribunales y, en segundo lugar, en términos generales, que las sentencias no están teniendo en cuenta las causas estructurales que afectan a la litigiosidad. Conclusiones: Los tribunales deberían avanzar hacia un equilibrio intencional en el reconocimiento, los remedios, la supervisión y la evaluación de las sentencias. Esto implica ser más reflexivos y estratégicos que reactivos y pasivos. En otras palabras, cuanto más inmaduro sea el sistema sanitario y más causas estructurales se perciban, más reflexivos y estratégicos deberían ser los Tribunales y más se debería promover el reconocimiento, la protección, la supervisión y la evaluación. Los Estados también deben adoptar medidas contundentes contra las causas estructurales y deben hacer operativo un enfoque de la salud más práctico y basado en los derechos, de manera tangible.

Foreword .-- Introduction .-- Part 1. Social policy institutions. -- Chapter I. Institutional framework for social development / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Chapter II. Social development and social protection institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean: overview and challenges / Rodrigo Martínez, Carlos Maldonado Valera .-- Part 2. Components and institutional framewoek of social protection. -- Chapter III. Labour market regulation and social protection: institutional challenges / Mario D. Velásquez Pinto .-- Chapter IV. Institutional aspects of Latin America's pension systems / Andras Uthoff .-- Chapter V. Care as a pillar of social protection: rights, policies and institutions in Latin America / María Nieves Rico, Claudia Robles .-- Part 3. Policies for specific populations and their institutional framework .-- Chapter VI. Life cycle and social policies: youth institutions in the region / Daniela Trucco .-- Chapter VII. Disability and public policy: institutional progress and challenges in Latin America / Heidi Ullmann .-- Chapter VIII. Latin American Afrodescendants: institutional framework and public policies / Marta Rangel.

Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

This forward-looking book provides an in-depth analysis of the major transformations of the right to health in Latin America over the past decades, marked by the turn towards the pharmaceuticalisation of health care. Everaldo Lamprea-Montealegre investigates how health-based litigation has deepened inequalities in the global South, exploring the practices of key actors that are reclaiming the right to health in the region.

Governance by regulation – rules propounded and enforced by bureaucracies – is taking a growing share of the sum total of governance. Once thought to be an American phenomenon, it is now a central form of state action in every part of the world, including Europe, Latin America, and Asia, and it is at the core of much international lawmaking. In Comparative Law and Regulation, original contributions by leading scholars in the field focus both on the legal dimension of regulation and on how this dimension operates in those places that have turned to regulation to meet their obligations.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.