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.

Synthetic biology is an emerging technology that shows promise for investigating some of the burning issues in biological research. It also has the potential to address some of the grand challenges facing society, such as climate change and energy security.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There’s a quiet revolution afoot: health data are increasingly collected, stored and used in digital form.

Harmful drinking is on the rise among young people and women in many OECD countries, partly due to alcohol becoming more available, more affordable and more effectively advertised, according to a new OECD report.

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.

Specific country notes have been prepared using data from the database OECD Health Statistics 2015, July 2015 version. The notes are available in PDF format.

Many European countries saw further reductions in health spending in 2013, according to OECD Health Statistics 2015. Health spending continued to shrink in Greece, Italy and Portugal in 2013. Most countries in the European Union reported real per capita health spending below the levels of 2009. Outside of Europe, health spending has been growing at around 2.5% per year since 2010.

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.

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.

Australia should improve the integration of care across the patient pathway to prepare for a rise in chronic disease and make the health system less complex for patients, 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.

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

The Australian health system is a complex mix of federal and state government funding and responsibility, making it difficult for patients to navigate. Despite its complexity, Australia’s universal health system achieves good results relatively efficiently.

The growth rate in health spending per capita in Canada has slowed down markedly in recent years, being close to zero in real terms since 2011. Life expectancy in Canada is one year higher than the OECD average, but rising alcohol consumption and obesity rates are growing risk factors to health. Canada could further improve the quality of care in order to cope better with rising prevalence of chronic diseases.

Finland appears to have a high performing health system, with remarkable good quality in both primary and hospital care. The country also achieves good health status at relatively low level of health spending. Despite these advances, there are specific areas where improvements can be made such as preventing the spread of obesity and addressing gaps in mental health.

The French health care system performs relatively well. Health outcomes are better than the OECD average and citizens enjoy good access to care. However, France is lagging behind other OECD countries in some areas including for example antibiotics prescribing or alcohol consumption.

Italy’s indicators of health system outcomes and quality are consistently good. This is despite levels of health spending below other high-income OECD countries. However, Italy is lagging behind in some areas, like long-term care and prevention of non-communicable diseases.

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.

Despite achieving near universal health coverage with a basic benefit package that all health payers must provide, health financing in Chile remains inefficient and inequitable. There is room for improving the system by moving towards a unified, equitable social security system for the entire population.

Although many health indicators are improving in Mexico, the country has the lowest life expectancy in the OECD. This is due to unhealthy lifestyles with higher risk factors to health leading to chronic diseases and mortality, but also to persisting barriers of access to high-quality health care services.

Belgium shows average health outcomes compared to other OECD countries. Life expectancy at birth is 80.7 years, just above the OECD average. Quality of care is fair, standing again near the OECD average. Health expenditure at 10.2% of GDP is higher than the OECD average of 1.3% points in 2013. Health policy in Belgium relies on shared responsibility of both the federal authorities and federated entities (regions and communities).

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.

An elderly man with cardiovascular disease tests his own blood pressure, and sends the results to an online application that his doctor can access. Another patient with depression living in a rural area far from health services tells a psychiatrist how he is feeling via a video connection. All of this occurs without the patients leaving their homes.

“Mental health issues exact a high price on individuals, their families, employers and the economy,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, “Policymakers have been too slow to act. Strong political leadership is needed to drive reform and tackle this issue.”

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.