Health at a Glance: Asia/Pacific 2024

Reader’s guide

Health at a Glance: Asia/Pacific presents a set of key indicators on health and health systems for 27 Asia-Pacific countries and territories. It builds on the format used in previous editions of Health at a Glance to present comparable data on health status and its determinants, healthcare resources and utilisation, healthcare expenditure and financing and healthcare quality.

This publication was prepared jointly by the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, the WHO Office for South-East Asia, the OECD Health Division and the OECD/Korea Policy Centre, under the co‑ordination of Luca Lorenzoni from the OECD Health Division.

Chapter 1 was prepared by Luca Lorenzoni from the OECD Health Division, with support from Mina Kashiwabara, Alia Cynthia Luz and Benjamin Bayutas (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 2 was written by Andrea Bruni, Sajeeva Ranaweera and Amani Siyam (WHO/SEARO), with support from Ruchita Rajbhandary (WHO/SEARO), Ana Mendez Lopez, Jasmine Vergara and Rolando Enrique Domingo (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 3 was prepared by Diana Castelblanco and Caroline Penn from the OECD Health Division and Fukushi Morishita, Kiyohiko Izumi, James Kelley, Dilip Hensman and Shanlong Ding (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 4 was prepared by Pauline Fron from the OECD Health Division, with support from Mina Kashiwabara, Xi Yin and Robert Ryan Arciaga (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 5 was written by Jose Manuel Jerez Pombo (OECD Health Division), and Chelsea Maria Taylor and Shanlong Ding (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 6 was prepared by Jose Manuel Jerez Pombo and Luca Lorenzoni from the OECD Health Division, with support from Alia Cynthia Luz and Ana Mendez-Lopez (WHO/WPRO). Chapter 7 was prepared by Rie Fujisawa (OECD Health Division), with support from Benjamin Bayutas, Elick Narayan and Ronald Anthony Yacat (WHO/WPRO).

Valuable input was received from Dilip Hensman (WHO/WPRO), Amani Siyam (WHO/SEARO) and Frederico Guanais (OECD Health Division).

This publication benefited from the comments and suggestions of Kidong Park (Director, Health Systems, WHO/WPRO), Manoj Jhalani (Director, Department of Universal Health Coverage/Health Systems, WHO/SEARO), Daesik Lim (Director General of the OECD/Korea Policy Centre) and Francesca Colombo (Head of OECD Health Division).

Thanks go to Lucy Hulett (OECD) for editorial assistance.

Structure of the publication

Health at a Glance: Asia/Pacific 2024 is divided into seven chapters:

Chapter 1 Dashboards shows a set of key indicators to compare performance across countries in each of the following dimensions: health status, risk factors, quality of care and healthcare resources. For each dimension, a set of indicators is presented in the form of country dashboards. The indicators are selected based on their policy relevance, but also on data availability and interpretability.

Chapter 2 on Mental health and neurological conditions in the Asia-Pacific region provides an overview of the burden of mental, neurological, substance use disorders, and self-harm, including a specific analysis of the burden of these conditions among children.

Chapter 3 on Health status highlights the variations across countries and territories in life expectancy, neonatal, infant and childhood mortality and major causes of mortality and morbidity, including both communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Chapter 4 on Determinants of health focuses on non-medical determinants of health. It features the health of mothers and babies, through family planning issues, low birthweight and breastfeeding. It also includes lifestyle and behavioural indicators such as smoking and underweight and overweight, as well as water and sanitation.

Chapter 5 on Health care resources, utilisation and access reviews some of the inputs, outputs and outcomes of healthcare systems. This includes the supply of doctors and nurses and hospital beds, as well as the provision of primary and secondary healthcare services, such as doctor consultations and hospital discharges, as well as a range of services surrounding pregnancy, childbirth and infancy.

Chapter 6 on Health care expenditure and financing examines trends in health spending across Asia-Pacific countries. It looks at how health services and goods are paid for, and the different mix between public funding, private health insurance, direct out-of-pocket payments by households and external resources.

Chapter 7 on Health care quality builds on the indicators used in the OECD’s Health Care Quality Indicator programme to examine trends in healthcare quality improvement across Asia-Pacific countries and territories.

Annex A provides the list of national data sources used for this publication.

Annex B provides some additional tables on the demographic context within which different health systems operate.

Asia-Pacific countries and territories

For this seventh edition of Health at a Glance: Asia/Pacific, 27 countries and territories were compared: 22 in Asia (Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Macau (China), Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam) and five in the Pacific region (Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands).

For the special thematic chapter, to capture trends in the countries of the two WHO Regions in Asia-Pacific, 38 countries were compared: Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Fiji, India Indonesia Japan, Kiribati, Korea1, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia (Federated States of), Maldives, Mongolia, New Zealand, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Viet Nam.

Selection and presentation of indicators

The indicators have been selected on the basis of being relevant to monitoring health systems performance, taking into account the availability and comparability of existing data in the Asia/Pacific region. The publication takes advantage of the routine administrative and programme data collected by the World Health Organization, especially the Regional Offices for the Western Pacific and South-East Asia, as well as special country population surveys collecting demographic and health information.

The indicators are presented in the form of easy-to-read figures and explanatory text. Each of the topics covered in this publication is presented over two or three pages. The first page (s) defines the indicator and notes any significant variations which might affect data comparability. It also provides brief commentary highlighting the key findings conveyed by the data. On the facing page is a set of figures. These typically show current levels of the indicator and, where possible, trends over time. In some cases, an additional figure relating the indicator to another variable is included.

The cut-off date for all the data reported in this publication is Friday 11 October 2024.

Averages

Countries and territories are classified into four income groups – high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low – based on their Gross National Income (GNI) per capita (current USD) calculated using the Atlas method (World Bank). The classification reported in the table below and used in this publication is the one updated for the current fiscal year 2024.

In text and figures, Asia Pacific-H refers to the unweighted average for high-income reporting Asia-Pacific countries and territories, Asia Pacific-UM refers to the unweighted average for upper-middle‑income reporting Asia Pacific countries and territories, and Asia Pacific-LM/L refers to the unweighted average for lower-middle‑ and low-income reporting countries and territories.

“OECD” refers to the unweighted average for the 38 OECD member countries. It includes Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Korea. Data for OECD countries are generally extracted from OECD sources, unless stated otherwise.

Even if from a statistical viewpoint the use of a population-weighted average is sound, the unweighted average used in this report allows for a better representation of levels and trends observed in countries and territories with small population numbers.

Country and territory ISO codes, GNI per capita and classification by income level

 

Country/territory name	Country/territory short name (used hereafter)	ISO code	World Bank classification by income level	Classification used in this report
Australia	Australia	AUS	High	H
Bangladesh	Bangladesh	BGD	Lower-middle	LM/L
Brunei Darussalam	Brunei Darussalam	BRN	High	H
Cambodia	Cambodia	KHM	Lower-middle	LM/L
China	China	CHN	Upper-middle	UM
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea	DPRK	PRK	Low	LM/L
Fiji	Fiji	FJI	Upper-middle	UM
Hong Kong (China)	Hong Kong (China)	HKG	High	H
India	India	IND	Lower-middle	LM/L
Indonesia	Indonesia	IDN	Lower-middle	UM
Japan	Japan	JPN	High	H
Korea*	Korea	KOR	High	H
Lao People’s Democratic Republic	Lao PDR	LAO	Lower-middle	LM/L
Macau (China)	Macau (China)	MAC	High	H
Malaysia	Malaysia	MYS	Upper-middle	UM
Mongolia	Mongolia	MNG	Lower-middle	LM/L
Myanmar	Myanmar	MMR	Lower-middle	LM/L
Nepal	Nepal	NPL	Lower-middle	LM/L
New Zealand	New Zealand	NZL	High	H
Pakistan	Pakistan	PAK	Lower-middle	LM/L
Papua New Guinea	Papua New Guinea	PNG	Lower-middle	LM/L
Philippines	Philippines	PHL	Lower-middle	LM/L
Singapore	Singapore	SGP	High	H
Solomon Islands	Solomon Islands	SLB	Lower-middle	LM/L
Sri Lanka	Sri Lanka	LKA	Lower-middle	LM/L
Thailand	Thailand	THA	Upper-middle	UM
Viet Nam	Viet Nam	VNM	Lower-middle	LM/L

Note

← 1. For WHO, “Korea” refers to the “Republic of Korea”.