Medical tourism occupies different spaces within national policy frameworks depending on which side of the transnational paradigm countries belong to, and how they seek to leverage it towards their developmental goals. This article draws attention to this policy divide in transnational healthcare through a comparative bibliometric review of policy research on medical tourism in select source (Canada, United States and United Kingdom) and destination countries (Mexico, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore), using a systematic search of the Web of Science (WoS) database and review of grey literature. We assess cross-national differences in policy and policy research on medical tourism against contextual policy landscapes and challenges, and examine the convergence between research and policy. Our findings indicate major disparities in development agendas and national policy concerns, both between and among source and destination countries. Further, we find that research on medical tourism does not always address prevailing policy challenges, just as the policy discourse oftentimes neglects relevant policy research on the subject. Based on our review, we highlight the limited application of theoretical policy paradigms in current medical tourism research and make the case for a comparative policy research agenda for the field.

中文翻译：

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跨国医疗保健的南北政策鸿沟：来源国和目的地国医疗旅游政策研究的比较回顾


医疗旅游在国家政策框架内占据不同的空间，具体取决于各国属于跨国范式的哪一方，以及它们如何利用它来实现其发展目标。本文通过对特定来源国（加拿大、美国和英国）和目的地国（墨西哥、印度、泰国、马来西亚和新加坡）的医疗旅游政策研究进行比较文献计量回顾，提请人们注意跨国医疗保健中的这一政策分歧，使用对 Web of Science (WoS) 数据库的系统检索和灰色文献回顾。我们根据背景政策环境和挑战评估医疗旅游政策和政策研究的跨国差异，并检验研究与政策之间的趋同性。我们的研究结果表明，来源国和目的地国之间在发展议程和国家政策关切方面存在重大差异。此外，我们发现医疗旅游的研究并不总能解决当前的政策挑战，正如政策话语常常忽视该主题的相关政策研究一样。根据我们的回顾，我们强调了理论政策范式在当前医疗旅游研究中的有限应用，并为该领域的比较政策研究议程提供了理由。