World Cancer Day: Where do OECD countries stand in the “war against cancer”?

Price levels for private hospital services in South Africa are comparable to the levels observed across OECD countries. But they are higher than what could be expected given the country’s income, according to a new OECD working paper.

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.

Although Ireland has seen remarkable improvements in the health of its population in the last decades, several challenges lie ahead for its health system. Based on available OECD analyses, further progress could be made to promote efficient use of hospital resources, strengthen primary care, address high pharmaceutical spending and prevent the spread of risk factors including obesity and alcohol consumption.

This paper looks at recent trends in pharmaceutical spending across OECD countries. It examines the drivers of recent spending trends, highlighting differences across therapeutic classes, and then looks at emerging challenges for policy makers in the management of pharmaceutical spending.

Between 2009 and 2013, public spending on health fell by EUR 5.2 billion – representing a 32% drop in real-terms. This reduction clearly represents a shock for the system to adsorb, even though it is clear that there were inefficiencies in the Greek system (for example, inappropriate prescribing, weak primary care, imbalances in the mix of health professionals).

In the past 30 years Korea has gone from having a limited medical infrastructure, fragmented financing and limited population coverage, to a health care system characterised by universal coverage, one of the highest life expectancies in the world while still having one of the lowest levels of health expenditure among OECD countries.

Outdoor air pollution could cause 6 to 9 million premature deaths a year by 2060 and cost 1% of global GDP – around USD 2.6 trillion annually – as a result of sick days, medical bills and reduced agricultural output, unless action is taken, according to a new OECD report.

At the OECD, we have calculated that about 50% of all the antimicrobials prescribed by healthcare facilities in our member countries do not meet prescription guidelines. In healthcare services such as long-term care facilities and general practices up to 70% and 90% respectively of antibiotics may be prescribed for inappropriate reasons.

The High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, chaired by H.E. François Hollande and H.E. Jacob Zuma, today delivered its final report and recommendations to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The G7 Health Ministers meeting in Kobe on 11-12 September welcomed OECD work on the linkages between Universal Health Coverage and healthy ageing, and recognised OECD work on access to innovative health treatments. The OECD will deliver initial findings following the French-led initiative to identify innovative options to pay for new medicines and high-cost treatments at the 17 January 2016 OECD Health Ministers meeting.

Better public health and prevention policies as well as more effective health care could save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of euros each year in Europe, according to a new joint OECD/European Commission report.

This High-Level Forum will be held at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris on 16 January 2017. Issues include: Harnessing digital technology and data to create proactive, people-centred systems; Overcoming technical, institutional and cultural challenges; Caring for people with complex needs; The importance of measuring what matters to people and to patients, and The role of international and cross-sector collaboration.

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.

Several countries have been setting up strategic roadmaps to support marine biotechnologies that could drive innovation and help address the global sustainability goals of food, energy, and health. This report identifies and begins to address challenges facing cooperation on marine biotechnology across countries.

World Health Summit 2017: OECD presenting on Big Data

This new series of OECD Reviews of Public Health provide in-depth analysis and policy recommendations to strengthen priority areas of countries’ public health systems, highlighting best practice examples that allow learning from shared experiences, and the spreading of innovative approaches.

This report identifies, and seeks to address, key challenges for the responsible development of neurotechnology. In particular, it analyses frameworks and mechanisms for integrating social concerns in the early development of technology, and discusses best practices for research funders across the public and private sector.

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing health and economic threat requiring multipronged responses. The OECD provides a forum for discussion and provide countries with the evidence to implement effective and cost-effective policies to tackle AMR, promote effective use of antimicrobials and incentivise research and development in the antibiotic sector.

This new brochure presents the OECD Work on Health for 2017-2018, including all recent and forthcoming major publications and databases.

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.

The workshop "Impact of Inequality on the Future Elderly – Policy Tools and Actions" will take place at the OECD Headquarters in Paris on April 5-6, 2018. Access the agenda, background documents, and register to attend.

An overview of the long-term care situation in Australia is available here.

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

Asia’s pension systems need modernising urgently to deliver secure, sustainable and adequate retirement incomes for today’s workers in the context of the rapid population ageing that will occur over the next two decades, according to a new OECD report.

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 note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012.

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 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.

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.

Slower growth in key markets like China and India is reducing momentum across the Australian economy, cutting into employment opportunities and putting more pressure on the government to ensure that public policy delivers optimal results for growth and job creation.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, was in Sydney from 21 to 23 February 2014 to attend the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meetings. While in Sydney, the Secretary-General launched the 2014 OECD Going for Growth report, alongside Mr. Joseph Benedict "Joe" Hockey, Treasurer of Australia.

PISA 2012 financial literacy results focusing on the performance of Australia amongst 17 other countries and economies who participated in the assessment: Belgium (Flemish Community), Shanghai-China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Israel, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain and the United States.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, will be in Sydney from 17 to 20 July 2014 to attend the G20 Trade Ministers Meeting.

Global Value Chains (GVCs) are a dominant feature of the world economy that impact growth, jobs and development, but numerous challenges remain to ensure that all countries and all firms have the opportunity to participate and benefit.

Since the start of the crisis, a growing number of OECD countries have been reporting declining inward and outward FDI, a phenomenon that could be described as ‘investment de-globalisation’. Governments must take immediate and vigorous action to reverse such trends by removing unnecessary barriers and complexities that hinder investment, said OECD Secretary-General.

According to a new OECD report, variation in rates of health care activity between geographic areas within a country may be a cause for concern. Wide variation suggests that whether or not patients receive a particular health service depends on the region where they live within a country.

The G20 needs to go structural, social, and green! With fiscal and monetary policy room nearly exhausted, structural reforms are the best choices, sometimes the only choice. The OECD battle cry in this regard has been unchanged since 2008: “go structural!”.

Each G20 presidency faces its own challenges. A presidency must respond to global economic conditions, it must build on previous work, and it must seize opportunities to progress with reforms where members can reach consensus.

Mr. Angel Gurría was in Brisbane to attend the G20 Leaders' Summit on 15-16 November. Prior to the Summit, the Secretary-General attended a G20 Finance Ministers Meeting, as well as L20 and B20 meetings.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

Water resources allocation determines who is able to use water resources, how, when and where. Capturing information from 27 OECD countries and key partner economies, the report presents key findings from the OECD Survey of Water Resources Allocation and case studies of successful allocation reform.

Biographical note of Australia's Permanent Representative to the OECD.

In a boost for international efforts to strengthen co-operation against offshore tax evasion, seven new countries have joined the agreement to exchange information automatically under the OECD/G20 standard.

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.

The number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) remains elevated in many countries since the crisis. This country note examines the characteristics of those at risk of being NEET in Australia along with policies to help meet the challenge. It also includes many new youth-specific indicators on family formation, self-sufficiency, income and poverty, health and social cohesion.