___________________________________________________________________________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: maespinoza@med.puc.cl; British Journal of Medicine & Medical Research 3(4): 1517-1529, 2013 SCIENCEDOMAIN international www.sciencedomain.org Examining the Link between Equity-Centered Health Policies, Autonomy and Decision- Making Process in Low and Middle Income Countries Manuel Espinoza 1* and Baltica Cabieses 2 1 Departmento de Salud Pública, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Sub-departamento de Estudios y Evaluación de Tecnologías Sanitarias, Departamento de Asuntos Científicos, Instituto de Salud Pública de Chile. 2 Facultad de Medicina Universidad del Desarrollo Clínica Alemana Chile; Department of Health Sciences, University of York, England. Authors’ contributions This work was carried out in collaboration between both authors. Author ME outlined the paper and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Author BC contributed to the paper`s structure and wrote the second draft of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript. Received 31 st December 2012 Accepted 5 th April 2013 Published 4 th May 2013 ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this article is to examine the main underlying social values that define health policy decisions. We focus on LMICs, many of which are at an early stage of implementation of these evidence-based policy processes. This review aimed at analyzing the ethical and procedural principles that underlie these social values, their potential conflict and the challenges of implementing a decision-making process according to these values in LMIC. Methods: Broad scoping search of international literature (December 2012) in PubMed, Cinahl, ISI Web of knowledge, Cochrane Library, and ProQuest. Search terms were “social values”, “healthcare/ health” and “low and middle income countries” (terms adapted according to each database). There was no pre-defined limit of year or language. We excluded “grey literature” documents only. From a total of 252 hits, we finally selected and fully read 51 of them. Review Article