Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41871845›Full record

ReviewBMJ global health2026

Structural adjustment: damages, reparations and pathways to non-recurrence.

Jason Hickel, Salmaan Keshavjee, Maxine Burkett, Eugene T Richardson

Erratum issuedAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in BMJ global health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Jason HickelInstitute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain jason.hickel@icrea.cat.ORCID 0000-0002-7490-9757
Salmaan KeshavjeeDepartment of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Maxine BurkettWilliam S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i, Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA.
Eugene T RichardsonDepartment of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-8437-0671

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank implemented neoliberal structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) across most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. SAPs imposed austerity, privatisation and economic deregulation and have been associated with severe negative impacts on human welfare, including (a) declining real wages and working-class consumption, (b) increased rates of poverty and basic-needs deprivation, (c) increased neonatal and maternal mortality and (d) reduced health system access. Structural adjustment also created conditions for increased financial outflows and drain from the global South through unequal exchange. This paper reviews evidence of these damages and proposes possible options for reparations and distributive justice. We argue that the IMF and the World Bank should be democratised and restructured-or otherwise replaced by alternative institutions-to prevent further harm.

Indexed as

Global HealthHealth Services AccessibilityUnited NationsDeveloping CountriesHealth PolicyHumansPoliticsPovertyPrivatizationGlobal HealthHealth policies and all other topicsHealth Services Accessibility

Identifiers

PMID41871845
PMCPMC13034243

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.