Abstract
Background
Chile, like many other countries, has seen major health reforms. It is now moving towards universal access using social protection strategies. It is essential at this point to have a clear view of the barriers to and facilitators of healthcare that Chile’s population faces.
Methods
We used ontological meta-analysis to formalize, standardize, and assess healthcare access in Chile by mapping the 200 research papers written about it. This methodology can be adapted to any other country to analyze its current situation.
Results
The results highlight the frequent, infrequent, and absent research themes. Among some of the findings are the importance of improving access to healthcare using physical, virtual, and combined access, based on the resource conditions, type of care, and the adequacy of personnel providing care.
Conclusions
This ontology and the analysis set the foundation for future research and establishment of policies in relevant areas where we are currently not paying enough attention.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Chilean National Council for Research, Science and Technology, CONICYT/FONDECYT, for funding this project (CONICYT/FONDECYT INICIACIÓN/project no. 11160150).
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In this manuscript, we are reporting data from publicly available papers.
Funding
Support for this research was received from the Chilean National Council for Research, Science and Technology, CONICYT/FONDECYT INICIACIÓN/project no. 11160150.
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AN developed the original research idea and questions, obtained the data for the study, conducted the data analysis, interpreted the results, and wrote the manuscript. AR contributed to the original research idea and questions, interpreted the results, and contributed to the writing and revision of the manuscript. TS contributed to the data analysis and revision of the manuscript. HL contributed to the writing and revision of the manuscript.
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Núñez, A., Ramaprasad, A., Syn, T. et al. An ontological analysis of the barriers to and facilitators of access to healthcare. J Public Health (Berl.) 29, 1411–1421 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01265-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01265-4