Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Spain named world’s healthiest country
India Slips One Rank, Trails Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal


TIMES NEWS NETWORK  26.02.2019

Spain and Italy have grabbed the two top spots in the list of the healthiest countries in the world. In South Asia, Sri Lanka at 66, Bangladesh at 91 and Nepal at 110 continued to rank well above India, out of the 169 countries that were evaluated. India slipped from 119 in the 2017 ranking to 120.

China rose three places to 52nd. Life expectancy in China is on track to surpass the US by 2040, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, stated the Bloomberg analysis. This was according to the 2019 edition of the Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index which ranked 169 economies according to factors that contribute to overall health, including traditional measures such as mortality by communicable and non-communicable diseases and life expectancy.

US which spends the highest per person on health, $11,000, slipped by one rank to 35 and its life expectancy had been dipping the last three years, while UK which spends $4,000 per person climbed from 23rd rank in 2017 to 19th this time. Cuba too improved it ranking from 31 to 30, well above the US and the only country not classified as “high income” by the World Bank to be ranked that high. The countries that have performed the best are those with universal healthcare where over 70% of healthcare spending is done by the government. These include Iceland, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Singapore and Norway in that order in the top ten.

Japan improved its ranking from 7th to 4th while Singapore, the only other Asian nation in the top ten, dropped sharply from 4th rank to 8th. Spain and Italy spend much less on healthcare (roughly $3500 per person) than many of the European countries and yet managed to top the list. India is estimated to spend barely $240 per person and most of it is spend by people from their own resources with little support from the government.

Pakistan (124), Myanmar

(129) and Afghanistan (153) are the only countries from this region with a lower ranking than India. Sri Lanka, facing increasing privatisation of healthcare and shrinking public spending on health slipped by one rank from 65 to 66. South Korea jumped seven places to 17th. Bangladesh improved its ranking by three spots while Nepal’s rank has remained the same.

At the bottom of the pile are mostly Sub-Saharan African countries, accounting for 27 of the 30 unhealthiest. Haiti, Afghanistan and Yemen were the others. Bloomberg evaluated health variables and risks ranging from those of behavioral nature to environmental characteristics. Final index only included nations with at least 0.3 million population and sufficient data.

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