This report examines examples of new and emerging governance models to support responsible development of diagnostics and treatments based on the latest advances in biomedicine. It identifies some of the main challenges for policy makers, regulators and other communities involved in the translation of biomedical innovation and health technologies from the lab bench to point of care.

Sweden’s health and elderly care systems deserve their reputation as being among the best in the world. Yet an ageing population with growing chronic conditions and requiring more complex health services are testing Sweden’s ability to continue delivering high-quality care, according to a new OECD report.

Switzerland needs to do more to help people with mental disorders find a job or stay in work, according to a new OECD report.

Mental health issues cost the UK around GBP 70 billion every year, or roughly 4.5% of GDP, in lost productivity at work, benefit payments and health care expenditure.

Air pollution is costing advanced economies plus China and India an estimated USD 3.5 trillion a year in premature deaths and ill health and the costs will rise without government action to limit vehicle emissions, a new OECD report says.

Improving primary care systems and co-ordination between health services would help Norway meet the changing needs of its healthcare system, as the population ages and hospital stays become shorter, according to a new OECD report.

Most people in OECD countries are overweight or obese. The social and economic consequences of this epidemic are dramatic, exposing an increasing number of people to chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

The pricing of specialist and hospital services is a contentious issue in South Africa. To help inform domestic debates, the OECD Secretariat has produced a paper profiling international experiences on the pricing of specialist medical services services, competition policy and models of buying services from the private sector.

Strengthening primary health care and prevention programmes would help stem the growing tide of diabetes and other chronic health conditions in the Czech Republic, according to a new OECD report.

Governments need to step up their efforts to improve mental health care which remains poorly resourced and under-prioritised in too many countries, according to a new OECD report.

Several OECD countries have published their plans for the development of a future bioeconomy, in which bio-based materials and production techniques will contribute significantly to economic and environmental sustainability. The case for support for bio-based chemicals and plastics therefore warrants serious attention.

Elderly individuals with complex, chronic diseases need continuous and tailored care to maintain their health and maximise their ability to participate in society. Japan must change the way it delivers health services for older citizens by strengthening its specialist primary care and making mental health care services more widely available, according to a new OECD report.

Improving labour market participation of people with mental health problems requires well-integrated policies and services across the education, employment, health and social sectors. This paper provides examples of policy initiatives from 10 OECD countries for integrated services.

Countries in the Asia/Pacific region need to step up their efforts to give more people access to affordable, quality health care. Too many people, especially women, cannot get the medical treatment they need due to high costs, difficulties in getting permission to see a doctor or a lack of health care providers in rural areas, according to a new OECD report.

Health and employment services should intervene earlier, involve key stakeholders and ensure they work together in order to help people with mental-health issues find work and stay in a job, according to a new OECD report.

Dementia is increasing in prevalence, and to date has no cure or treatment. One element in improving this situation is using and sharing data more widely to increase the power of research. Further, moving beyond established medical data into big data offers the potential to tap into routinely collected data from both within and outside the health system.

OECD insights blog: Francesca Colombo, Head of the OECD Health Division, discusses the issues related to health systems and an ageing population.

The Portuguese National Health Service has responded well to financial pressure, successfully balancing the twin priorities of financial consolidation and continuous quality improvement, according to a new OECD report.

Healthcare costs are rising so fast in advanced economies that they will become unaffordable by mid-century without reforms, according to a new OECD report.

Health Data Governance: Strong health data governance frameworks are needed

Urgent research is needed to assess the possible risks to human health and ecosystems from the ever-increasing amounts of engineered nanomaterials going into household waste and ending up in the environment, according to a new OECD report.

The number of doctors and nurses has reached record levels in the OECD. Countries should now reform their training and employment strategies to better respond to people’s changing health needs and also reduce their reliance on foreign-trained health workers from developing countries, according to a new OECD report.

Asia-Pacific countries should strengthen their health systems and sharply increase spending to deliver effective universal coverage in order to meet the changing needs of their fast ageing populations, according to a new OECD report.

The proliferation of high-cost medicines and rising drug prices are increasing pressures on public health spending and calling into question the pharmaceutical industry’s pricing strategies.

Italy is slowly emerging from a deep and lengthy recession, helped by a range of structural reforms – such as the Jobs Act – and accommodative monetary and fiscal policies, according to a new OECD report.

Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) are commonly used to convert national currencies to a common unit. The main novel feature in the 2017 report is the collection of comparable and output-based prices for hospital services that can then be applied to matching health accounts expenditure data so as to derive consistent price and volume comparisons of health and hospital goods and services consumed.

This document revises the OECD's statistical definition of biotechnology, which had last been reviewed in 2008, and proposes the adoption of a statistical definition of nanotechnology in the same format.

Korea tops a new OECD PISA survey that tests how 15-year olds use computers and the Internet to learn. The next best performers were New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Hong-Kong China and Iceland.

Evaluation and assessment policies are key in Australia’s national school reform agenda. The Australian approach combines the development of goals, monitoring and reporting at national level with local evaluation and assessment practices shaped by jurisdiction-level school improvement frameworks

This country note provides information on latest trends in income inequalities as well as key findings from the 2011 OECD report "Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising".

How can government policies move towards increasing agricultural innovation and improving productivity? This OECD conference shared case studies and ideas from Europe, China, United States, India, Africa, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

This case study describes the policy-making process in Australia leading to the public release of information on every school in Australia through the My School website. Policy lessons are described to provide insight for OECD member countries which may be grappling with similar issues.

Australia’s education system achieves good outcomes overall - attainment of upper secondary education by adults aged 25 to 34 was 85% in 2010, above the OECD average of 82%

Australia’s enforcement of its foreign bribery laws has been extremely low, with just a single case leading to prosecutions out of 28 referrals in 13 years. Cases may have been closed prematurely. Australia must vigorously pursue foreign bribery allegations.

Australia’s labour market reforms over the past 15 years have boosted employment and cut welfare benefit dependency.

Education at a Glance 2013 - Country notes and key fact tables

Carbon taxes and emission trading systems are the most cost-effective means of reducing CO2 emissions, and should be at the centre of government efforts to tackle climate change,according to a new OECD study.

The global economic crisis has had a profound impact on people’s well-being, reaching far beyond the loss of jobs and income, and affecting citizens’ satisfaction with their lives and their trust in governments, according to a new OECD report.

Australians continue to enjoy one of the highest levels of health across the developed world but need to address Australia’s growing obesity problem, according to a new OECD report.

The ability to measure innovation is essential to an improvement strategy in education. This country note analyses how the practices are changing within classrooms and educational organisations and how teachers develop and use their pedagogical resources.

Country notes with main key findings of the book and key fact tables: a customised snapshot of a country's educational environment, highlighting the most important issues in the educational landscape.

The 2015 edition introduces more detailed analysis of participation in early childhood and tertiary levels of education. The report also examines first generation tertiary-educated adults’ educational and social mobility, labour market outcomes for recent graduates, and participation in employer-sponsored formal and/or non-formal education.

Australia should provide early access to more intensive employment services for disadvantaged laid-off workers to help them find a new job more quickly, according to a new OECD report.

Australia should follow up on the reform of its vocational education system by improving quality control in the VET sector and step up career guidance for young people to boost young people’s job prospects and reduce the share of under-30-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), according to a new OECD report.

Education at a Glance 2016 - Country Notes

Australia’s strong economy has helped drive a healthy job market. But to avoid a future shortage of labour as the population ages, further efforts are needed to help older women, indigenous Australians and mothers with young children into work, according to a new OECD report.

Australia’s active global engagement on development and its focus on fragile small island states and disaster risk reduction are commendable. However successive cuts to the country’s aid budget since 2013 are impairing its efforts, according to the latest DAC Peer Review of Australia.

These graphs offer a brief summary of the commodity trade situation in the country.

Australia has made some progress replacing coal with natural gas and renewables in electricity generation yet remains one of the most carbon-intensive OECD countries and one of the few where greenhouse gas emissions (excluding land use and forestry) have risen in the past decade. The country will fall short of its 2030 emissions target without a major effort to move to a low-carbon model, according to a new OECD report.

This country fact-sheet presents key figures from "Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class". This report analyses the trends of middle-income households in areas such as employment, consumption, wealth and debt, as well as perceptions and social attitudes. It also includes recommendations for protecting middle-class living standards and financial security in the face of economic challenges.