This workshop will convene leading experts from health and finance backgrounds in government, academia, and international organisations to take stock of progress in health expenditure forecasting and to discuss future directions, in light of policy needs and recent advancements in techniques, detailed data and computing power.

Though the rate of public spending on healthcare in the Asia/Pacific region is still well below the OECD average, countries there are committing more resources to improving health care quality.

The Netherlands, as other OECD countries, faces the challenge of providing high quality health and long term care services to an ageing population in a cost-efficient manner.

Belgian companies, mutualities and employment services should be more proactive in helping people with mental health problems stay in the workplace or find a job, according to a new OECD report.

OECD Health Working Papers No. 60: Health Spending Growth at Zero: Which Countries, Which Sectors Are Most Affected?

Increasingly complex and inconsistent clinical trial regulations are causing delays, raising costs and leading to a decline in the number of international trials conducted by academics for non-commerical purposes.

The Danish central government and regions are leading international efforts to reform hospital systems, improving quality and safety by gathering specialists into major hospitals and closing smaller ones.

The main purpose of this meeting is to shortly present where the Mental Health and Work project stands and to discuss some good practice examples from the first countries that have been reviewed.

This paper brings together information collected through Working Party on Nanotechnology discussions and projects. It relies in particular on preliminary results from a project on the responsible development of nanotechnology and outcomes of a symposium held in 2012.

The number of people over 80 will double by 2050 rising from 3.9% of the population to 9.1% in 2050 across OECD countries and from 4.7% to 11.3% across 27 EU members. Estimates are that up to half of them will need help to cope with their daily needs. Yet even today governments are struggling to deliver high-quality care to elderly people with reduced physical and mental abilities, says a new OECD/EC report, A good life in old age? .

This paper provides new projections of public spending on health and long-term care for OECD countries and the BRIICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa). Despite the inevitable uncertainty surrounding projections, they suggest a rapidly rising trend over the next 50 years.

The future of public health: policy decisions today for tomorrow’s populations. Our health, our economy, our society, our future: a Brave New World. Remarks by Yves Leterme, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD. Brussels, Belgium, September 4th 2013.

This document outlines the methodologies and tools currently used to assess the risk of chemicals to children’s health and also identifies possible needs for additional guidance or tools based on the results of an on-line survey conducted in November 2011. The following areas of risk assessment are covered: definitions, hazard and exposure assessment, risk characterisation, cohort studies and combined exposure to multiple chemicals.

Earlier detection and better treatment for cancer would cut death rates from the disease by around a third, saving the lives of nearly a million people in the developed world every year, according to a new report by the OECD prepared with the support of the European Commission, building on earlier World Health Organisation research.

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.

Ireland continues to make substantive headway in improving health outcomes, but more can be done in reducing risk-factors for major diseases and improving value-for-money in health spending, 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.

Health spending per capita in real terms fell by 2% in Italy in 2011, and is estimated to have fallen by a further 0.4% in 2012. Spending per capita also fell in 10 other European countries between 2009 and 2011, following the recession and the need for fiscal consolidation, according to a new OECD report.

Japan has good health outcomes and has rapidly increased its spending on health care in recent years. It now needs to focus on improving efficiency of its health system in order to continue delivering high-quality care while containing costs, according to a new OECD report.

Mexico needs serious investment in prevention programmes to address its massive, and still rising, obesity rate, according to a new OECD report.

Health spending has fallen in the United Kingdom in 2010 and 2011 for the first time since the 1970s, according to a new OECD report. Health at a Glance 2013 says that spending in real terms per capita fell by 1.1% in 2011, following a 2.5% decline in 2010.

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.

An ageing population brings new challenges both to healthcare systems and to medicine in terms of the increased manifestation of specific diseases primarily seen in the elderly. Biomedical innovation, and in particular research into "omics technologies", offers the promise of new means of detection, prevention and treatment of age-related disabilities and diseases.

More than 35 million people worldwide had dementia in 2010 and this number is expected to exceed 115 million by 2050. This paper reports on the opportunities offered by the informatics revolution and big data to address Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia. This will require careful planning and multi-stakeholder collaboration as technical, administrative, regulatory, infrastructure and financial obstacles emerge.

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.

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.

Health spending has started to rise again after stagnating or even falling in many OECD countries during the crisis. But the pace of growth remains well below pre-crisis rates, especially in Europe, according to OECD Health Statistics 2014.

The USA has exceptional levels of health-care expenditure, but growth slowed dramatically in recent years, amidst major efforts to close the coverage gap with other OECD countries.

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.

Health care use varies widely across countries but can also vary as much or more within countries. Governments should do more to improve their health systems to prevent unnecessary interventions and ensure that everyone has the same access to quality healthcare, wherever they live, according to a new OECD report.

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.

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.

The Netherlands should increase support for workers suffering from mental health issues and their employers and tackle the continued social stigma and limited knowledge around such illnesses, according to a new OECD report.

Today, Europeans enjoy a much longer life expectancy than the previous generation, but large inequalities in health remain across and within countries. These are largely due to disparities in access to and quality of care, as well as individual lifestyles and behaviours, according to a new joint OECD/European Commission report.

Italy has significantly improved the quality of health care in recent decades but needs to tackle the wide disparities that remain between regions, according to a new OECD report.

Mr. Angel Gurría was in The Hague to attend the High-Level Policy Forum on Mental Health and Work Policy Challenges in OECD Countries, where he presented key findings of the OECD Fit Mind Fit Job report and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Orange Nassau.

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.

The current policy approach to tackling dementia is socially and economically unsustainable, according to a new OECD report. Countries need to take action now to improve the lives of people living with dementia and their carers, prioritise public research on dementia, and improve the incentives for private investment in dementia innovation.

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.

Rising levels of obesity and diabetes around the world could halt a trend of decreasing mortality rates for cardiovascular diseases, such as strokes and heart attacks, and even cause rates to start rising again, particularly among younger people, 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.

Austria needs to do more to help people with mental health problems find a job or stay in the workplace, according to a new OECD report. A more comprehensive approach would help employees and firms alike: mental health issues are estimated to cost the Austrian economy around 3.6% of GDP every year in lost productivity, health care and out-of-work benefits.

Health Data Governance: Strong health data governance frameworks are needed

Too many lives are still lost in OECD countries because healthcare quality is improving too slowly to cope with ageing populations and the growing number of people with one or more chronic diseases, according to a new OECD report.

The recent mental health reform is an important step towards better services for people with mental ill-health, but Australia needs to do more to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues at and into work, according to a new OECD report.

Colombia has significantly improved its health system over the past 20 years, leading to a rise in life expectancy and a fall in infant mortality. To maintain its ambition of universal, high-quality health care, Colombia should now focus on improving efficiency and strengthening financial sustainability, according to a new OECD report.

In the ten years since the introduction of Seguro Popular, some 50 million Mexicans previously at risk of unaffordable health care bills now have access to health insurance. The OECD Review of Health Systems: Mexico 2016 finds that the share of the population exposed to unaffordable or impoverishing health care costs has fallen from 3.3% to 0.8% of the population in the past decade.