What Can Healthcare Learn from Other Sectors - A Systematic Review of Causal Evaluations of Anti-Corruption Policies and Interventions

Corruption in healthcare is widespread, costly, and consequential. Over the past decade, interest in this issue has surged alongside growing demand for effective solutions. Practitioners designing and implementing anti-corruption policies must understand how best practices and insights from other fields can inform intervention design. In this paper, we systematically review social science contributions to literature since 2010 which causally evaluate the effectiveness of policies, pilots, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on relevant corruption outcomes, such as bribery, conflicts of interest and cronyism. By developing a conceptual framework that aligns interventions with the specific types of corrupt practices they target, we analyze the policy tools and contextual factors that contribute to observed reductions in corruption. Furthermore, by assessing the theory of change proposed by the selected contributions, we explore how different actors and stakeholders in healthcare can leverage these lessons to enhance anti-corruption practices.