OECD Health Data 2012 How Does China Compare with OECD Countries
Total health spending accounted for 5.1% of GDP in China in 2010, well below the OECD average of 9.5%. Health spending as a share of GDP among OECD countries is highest in the United States, which spent 17.6% of its GDP on health in 2010.
Health spending tends to rise with income, and generally countries with higher GDP per capita also tend to spend more on health. It is not surprising, therefore, that China ranks also below the OECD average in terms of health expenditure per capita, with spending of USD 379 in 2010 (calculated based on purchasing power parity), compared with an OECD average of USD 3268.
Data are expressed in US dollars adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPPs), which provide a means of comparing spending between countries on a common base. PPPs are the rates of currency conversion that equalise the cost of a given ‘basket’ of goods and services in different countries.
The public sector is the main source of health funding in all OECD countries, except Mexico, Chile and the United States. In China, 53.6% of health spending was funded by public sources in 2010, well below the average of 72.2% across OECD countries.
Resources in the health sector
With 1.4 physicians per 1000 population in 2010, China had fewer doctors per capita than the OECD average (3.1 physicians). China had 1.4 nurses per 1000 population, also much lower than the OECD average (8.7 nurses). The total number of hospital beds in China was 4.2 per 1000 population in 2010, slightly lower than the OECD average of 4.8 beds.
Health status and risk factors
Most countries have enjoyed large gains in life expectancy over the past decades, thanks to improvements in living conditions, public health interventions and progress in medical care. Life expectancy at birth in China has increased by more than 25 years since 1960 to reach 73.1 years in 2010, although it remains lower than the OECD average (79.8 years).
The infant mortality rate in China has fallen greatly over the past two decades from 37 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 16 deaths in 2010. Nonetheless, it remains much higher than the OECD average of 4.3 deaths per 1000 births.
The proportion of regular smokers among adults has shown a marked decline over the past two decades in many countries. The smoking rate in China stood at 24.1% in 2010, three percentage points higher than the OECD average of 21.1%. There remains, however, a huge gender gap in smoking rates between men and women: 45.4% of Chinese men reported smoking every day in 2010. In OECD countries, only Greece has a higher male smoking rate. Only 2% of Chinese women smoke daily.
Obesity rates have increased in recent decades in all OECD countries, although there are notable differences. The World Health Organization estimated that 4.6% of males and 6.5% of females were obese in China in 2008. This is a much lower rate than in most other OECD countries (the average for the males/females rate combined was 15.0% in OECD countries in 2010), but higher than in Japan (3.8% of males and 3.2% of females in 2010) and in Korea (3.5% of males and 4.7% of females also in 2010).
Data for OECD countries come from OECD Health Data 2012, a database that provides comparable statistics on health and health systems across the 34 OECD countries. More information on this database is available at www.oecd.org/health/healthdata. Data for China come from the Ministry of Health (China Health Statistics Yearbook), as well as from the World Bank and WHO.
For more information on OECD's work on China, please visit www.oecd.org/china.
Health spending tends to rise with income, and generally countries with higher GDP per capita also tend to spend more on health. It is not surprising, therefore, that China ranks also below the OECD average in terms of health expenditure per capita, with spending of USD 379 in 2010 (calculated based on purchasing power parity), compared with an OECD average of USD 3268.
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Data are expressed in US dollars adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPPs), which provide a means of comparing spending between countries on a common base. PPPs are the rates of currency conversion that equalise the cost of a given ‘basket’ of goods and services in different countries.
The public sector is the main source of health funding in all OECD countries, except Mexico, Chile and the United States. In China, 53.6% of health spending was funded by public sources in 2010, well below the average of 72.2% across OECD countries.
Resources in the health sector
With 1.4 physicians per 1000 population in 2010, China had fewer doctors per capita than the OECD average (3.1 physicians). China had 1.4 nurses per 1000 population, also much lower than the OECD average (8.7 nurses). The total number of hospital beds in China was 4.2 per 1000 population in 2010, slightly lower than the OECD average of 4.8 beds.
Health status and risk factors
Most countries have enjoyed large gains in life expectancy over the past decades, thanks to improvements in living conditions, public health interventions and progress in medical care. Life expectancy at birth in China has increased by more than 25 years since 1960 to reach 73.1 years in 2010, although it remains lower than the OECD average (79.8 years).
The infant mortality rate in China has fallen greatly over the past two decades from 37 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 16 deaths in 2010. Nonetheless, it remains much higher than the OECD average of 4.3 deaths per 1000 births.
The proportion of regular smokers among adults has shown a marked decline over the past two decades in many countries. The smoking rate in China stood at 24.1% in 2010, three percentage points higher than the OECD average of 21.1%. There remains, however, a huge gender gap in smoking rates between men and women: 45.4% of Chinese men reported smoking every day in 2010. In OECD countries, only Greece has a higher male smoking rate. Only 2% of Chinese women smoke daily.
Obesity rates have increased in recent decades in all OECD countries, although there are notable differences. The World Health Organization estimated that 4.6% of males and 6.5% of females were obese in China in 2008. This is a much lower rate than in most other OECD countries (the average for the males/females rate combined was 15.0% in OECD countries in 2010), but higher than in Japan (3.8% of males and 3.2% of females in 2010) and in Korea (3.5% of males and 4.7% of females also in 2010).
Data for OECD countries come from OECD Health Data 2012, a database that provides comparable statistics on health and health systems across the 34 OECD countries. More information on this database is available at www.oecd.org/health/healthdata. Data for China come from the Ministry of Health (China Health Statistics Yearbook), as well as from the World Bank and WHO.
For more information on OECD's work on China, please visit www.oecd.org/china.
