The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) publishes a comprehensive annual report and analysis called “OECD Health Data” in July.
OECD countries in this report include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the USA.
A concentrated version called “Health at a Glance 2007” was published this week, which is where these graphs were sourced and now presented without the analysis. It covers a variety of statistics on insurance, lifestyle influences (smoking, alcohol, road accidents), salaries for doctors and nurses, hospital care and government spending.
*Health care in Greece has worsened since this survey. Unpaid debts to pharmacies, hospitals and suppliers have forced providers to shut down or severely alter services; and many residents can no longer afford basic health care due to rising costs and unemployment.
Notes
Countries absent from a graph were excluded by OECD, either because data was not available or the data/survey was somehow tainted, skewed or inappropriately answered.
All graphs are presented as clickable images that will enlarge, since shrinking them only made them unreadable. You have the option to use the OECD link above, however the report is embedded in 50 pages and graphs are presented the same way. Here, you have them all at your fingertips and can choose only the ones that interest you.
1. Demographics
1-1: Population
1-2: Birth rate
1-3: Gross domestic product (GDP)
2. Health Status
2-1: Life expectancy
2-2: Disability trends in people over 65
2-3: Premature death rate by gender
2-4: Death from heart disease and stroke
2-5: Death from cancer
2-6: Death from road accidents
2-7: Suicide rates
2-8: Infant mortality
2-9: Infant low birth weight
2-10: Child dental health
2-11: Perceived health status
2-12: Death by AIDS
3. Lifestyle determinants of health
3-1: Smoking
Number of cancer-related deaths
3-2: Alcohol consumption
3-3: Being overweight and obesity
4. Health care resources and utilization
4-1: Medical and nursing graduates
4-2: Practicing physicians
Number of private/public doctors in practice
General practitioners vs. specialists
4-3: Practicing nurses
4-4: Salaries of doctors and nurses (GDP)
4-5: Hospital beds (acute care)
Availability per capita
4-6: Hospital beds (long-term)
4-7: Medical technology
4-8: Consultations with doctors
4-9: Hospital discharges (omitted)
4-10: Length of hospital stay
4-11: Cardiovascular procedures
4-12: Treatment of renal conditions
4-13: Caesarean sections
4-14: Cataract surgeries
4-15: Pharmaceutical consumption:
5. Health care spending
5-1: Expenditure per capita (public/private)
5-2: Expenditure vs. GDP
5-3: Expenditure by function
5-4: Pharmaceutical expenditure
5-5: Financing of health care
Public share of pharmaceuticals/services
5-6: Health insurance coverage
6. Quality of health care
The quality of health care section provided limited information and did not include more than a few countries, either because data was not available or the survey was not completed correctly. Therefore, I omitted this data. (Greece was not included, in case you’re wondering).
Related posts
“Heart-to-heart encounter with private hospital in Greece”
“Greek residents at mercy of unevaluated doctors”
“Clinics in Greece cheat insurance fund“