A review of appropriate indicators for need-based financial resource allocation in health systems

Background: optimal need-based financial resource allocation is one of the most prominent concerns of health systems; various criteria are required to guarantee its fairness. The aim of the present study was to identify the indicators needed to allocate financial resources in the world's health systems through a comprehensive review of studies. In this systematic review, all articles and reports published about need-based financial resource allocation in health systems between 1990 to 2020 in the reputable English language databases including PubMed, Cochrane, Scopus, Persian language databases such as magiran, SID and Google and Google scholar search engines were searched and studied. Of 823 articles found, 29 articles met the inclusion criteria for this study and were analyzed by the content analysis method using MAXQDA (version 10) software. result Many need-based resource allocation formulas attempt to estimate health care needs using weighting methods for individuals. The most commonly used indicators were: age, gender, socio-economic status or deprivation, ethnicity, standardized mortality ratio (SMR), modified health indicators (disease consequences, self-assessed health and disability), geographical area / place of residence (geography) (rural versus urban), cross-boundary flows, cost of services and donations. Conclusion The indicators used in the allocation of the financial resources of the health system in each country must be simple and transparent and at the same time must be in accordance with the moral norms of that society, must be a good representative of the people’s health needs in different geographical areas of that country and their information must be available (to an acceptable extent).