Society : Safeguard social support for poorest families, says OECD’s Gurría

27-Apr-2011

Poverty in households with children is rising in nearly all OECD countries. Governments should ensure that family support policies protect the most vulnerable, according to the OECD’s first-ever report on family well-being.

Health at a Glance: Europe 2010

07-Dec-2010

A special edition of Health at a Glance: Europe is released on 7 December 2010. It focuses on health issues across the 27 European Union member states, three European Free Trade Association countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and Turkey. It gives readers a better understanding of the factors that affect the health of populations and the performance of health systems in these countries. Its 42 indicators present comparable data covering a wide range of topics, including health status, risk factors, health workforce and health expenditure.

Why does the United States spend so much more on health than other countries?

22-Mar-2010

In light of the historic vote by the US Congress, this brief outlines some of the key challenges facing the US health system. The United States spent 16% of its national income (GDP) on health in 2007, which is by far, the highest share in the OECD and more than seven percentage points higher than the average of 8.9% in OECD countries. This presentation was given by Mark Pearson, Head of OECD Health Division, to the U.S Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Policy Brief on the International Migration of Health Workforce

12-Mar-2010

This joint OECD/WHO Policy Brief provides new insights on recent migration trends for doctors and nurses and discusses the main causes and consequences for destination and origin countries. Possible policy responses stressing the importance of improved international co-operation to address the global health workforce crisis are presented along with new updated data up to 2008.

OECD Health Policy Studies - Achieving Better Value for Money in Health Care

12-Nov-2009

Rising public health care spending remains a problem in virtually all OECD and EU member countries. As a consequence, there is growing interest in policies that will ease this pressure through improved health system performance. This report report examines selected policies that may help countries better achieve the goal of improved health system efficiency and thus better value for money.

Tracking the growth in Medical Tourism: OECD helps Ministers shape the debate

27-Oct-2009

International trade in health services has been attracting increasing attention from health analysts, public health policy makers, and trade and tourism promotion agencies but with relatively little data to inform them. This statement was made by David Morgan of the Health Division at a roundtable meeting of ministers of health and tourism at the Medical Tourism and Global Health Congress, Los Angeles, October 26th-28th, 2009.

Health Update No. 7 now available

10-Jul-2009

Issue 7 of Health Update looks at the question of health spending in the current economic crisis. It also features other key health-related projects throughout the OECD (including information and communication technology, healthy ageing, obesity and long term care) and the recent release of OECD Health Data 2009.

OECD Health Data 2009 – comparing health statistics across OECD countries

01-Jul-2009

The number of doctors per capita increased 2% per year on average across OECD countries between 1990 and 2007, but in some countries the trend is reversing. These are some of the findings from OECD Health Data 2009, the most comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across the 30 OECD countries.

Education reduces probability of obesity

19-Jun-2009

OECD Health Working Paper No. 46 presents the findings of health survey data from Australia, Canada, England and Korea. It shows that education appears to be associated with a lower likelihood of obesity, especially among women. This is determined by at least three factors: greater access to and handling of health-related information; clearer perception of the risks associated with lifestyle choices; and improved self-control and consistency of preferences over time. The higher a person’s education relative to his or her peers’, the lower the probability of that person being obese.

Governments must do more to help most vulnerable amid rising unemployment, urges OECD

15-May-2009

Governments must urgently adapt their labour market policies to help their most vulnerable citizens in the economic crisis, as was concluded at the High-Level Forum on Sickness, Disability and Work in May 2009. Key to this will be avoiding that the crisis further strengthens a disability benefit culture that pushes many people with disability onto benefit schemes and out of work for the rest of their lives.

OECD Health Ministerial Meeting - Health Priorities in the Aftermath of the Crisis

from 07-Oct-2010 to 08-Oct-2010

Health Ministers will meet at the OECD on 7-8 October 2010 to discuss health priorities following the economic crisis. They will discuss how to provide better health at a lower cost and how spending money on preventing unhealthy lifestyles can be a better use of health funds than dealing with the resulting diseases.

Prior to the Ministerial a Forum on quality of care will be held and will examine how quality affects the efficiency of health systems.