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<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In rationing decisions in health, many criteria like costs, effectiveness, equity and feasibility concerns play a role. These criteria stem from different disciplines that all aim to inform health care rationing decisions, but a single underlying concept that incorporates all criteria does not yet exist. Therefore, we aim to develop a conceptual mapping of criteria, based on the World Health Organization’s <it>Health Systems Performance</it> and <it>Health Systems Building Blocks</it> frameworks. This map can be an aid to decision makers to identify the relevant criteria for priority setting in their specific context.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We made an inventory of all possible criteria for priority setting on the basis of literature review. We categorized the criteria according to both health system frameworks that spell out a country’s health system goals and input. We reason that the criteria that decision makers use in priority setting exercises are a direct manifestation of this.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our map includes thirty-one criteria that are distributed among five categories that reflect the goals of a health system (i.e. to improve level of health, fair distribution of health, responsiveness, social & financial risk protection and efficiency) and leadership/governance one category that reflects feasibiliy based on the health system building blocks (i.e. service delivery, health care workforce , information, medical products, vaccines & technologies, financing and).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This conceptual mapping of criteria, based on well-established health system frameworks, will further develop the field of priority setting by assisting decision makers in the identification of multiple criteria for selection of health interventions.</p>