Health at a Glance 2017 presents the latest comparable data and trends on key indicators of health outcomes and health systems across the 35 OECD member countries. These indicators shed light on the performance of health systems, with indicators reflecting health outcomes, non-medical determinants of health, the degree of access to care, the quality of care provided, and the financial and material resources devoted to health. For a subset of indicators, data are reported for partner countries, including Brazil, China, Colombia, Cost Rica, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and South Africa.

Health at a Glance 2017 presents up-to-date cross-country comparisons of the health status of populations and health system performance in OECD and partner countries. Alongside indicator-by-indicator analysis, this edition offers snapshots and dashboard indicators that summarise the comparative performance of countries, and a special chapter on the main factors driving life expectancy gains.

Health at a Glance 2017 presents comparisons of key indicators for health and health system performance across the 35 OECD countries. Candidate and key partner countries are also included where possible (Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and South Africa). The data presented in this publication come from official national statistics, unless otherwise stated.

This chapter presents a set of selected indicators on health and health system performance, designed to shed light on how well OECD countries perform along five dimensions: health status, risk factors for health, access to care, quality and outcomes of care, and health care resources. These indicators, taken from the main chapters of the publication, are presented in the form of OECD snapshots and country dashboards. The former illustrates time trends for the OECD as a whole, together with a snapshot of the latest available data (OECD average, top and bottom performers). The dashboards summarise how each country performs on all indicators compared to the OECD average.The selection of the indicators presented in this chapter was based on policy relevance, data availability and ease of interpretation. The selection and comparison of indicators is meant to capture relative strengths and weaknesses of countries to help identify possible areas for priority action, though not to identify which countries have the best health system overall.

Countries with higher national income and health spending tend to have longer life expectancies. But these factors can only account for a part of life expectancy differences across countries. This chapter analyses the factors contributing to health status, including a closer assessment of the determinants of health that go beyond the health system. It shows that on average, a 10% increase in health spending per capita is associated with a gain of 3.5 months of life expectancy. The same rate of improvement in healthier lifestyles (10%) is associated with a gain of 2.6 months of life expectancy. Wider social determinants are also important: a 10% increase in income per capita is associated with a gain of 2.2 months of life expectancy, and a 10% increase in primary education coverage with 3.2 months. For income, minimum absolute levels are particularly critical to protecting people’s health.The main policy implication emerging from this analysis is the significant opportunities for health improvement from coordinated action across ministries responsible for education, the environment, income and social protection, alongside health ministries. This includes inter-sectoral action to address health-related behaviours. Collaboration with the private sector will also be important, especially with employers in relation to working conditions.