Introduction: Corruption in the health care system is a universal phenomenon, putting at risk the health of populations. The purpose of this work was to synthesize the international literature on corruption in the health sector.
Methods: This is a systematic review of literature dealing with articles on health corruption practices, published between July 2008 and June 2018, via two search engines: PubMed and Google Scholar. The extracted data were narratively summarized in three major areas: defining the concept of corruption in health, its typology / manifestations and anti-corruption interventions.
Results: A total of 23 articles were selected for final analysis. The articles that defined health corruption shared two key aspects: "abuse of power" and "benefit". The main types of corruption were "abuse of therapeutic indication", followed by "bribes" and "falsification". The anti-corruption interventions were synthesized into seven types: creation of an independent multi-interventional agency, support for scientific research, law enforcement, awareness raising, detection, reporting and institutional commitment.
Conclusion: Based on the use of power, corruption in health is a complex phenomenon whose struggle requires a specific and contextualized strategy integrating information, detection and punishment.