Health at a Glance compares key indicators for population health and health system performance across OECD members, candidate and partner countries. This 2019 edition presents the latest comparable data across 80 indicators, reflecting differences across countries in health status, risk factors and health-seeking behaviour, access, quality of care, and the financial and physical resources available for health. Alongside indicator-by-indicator analysis, an overview chapter summarises the comparative performance of countries and major trends, including how much health spending is associated with staffing levels, access, quality, and health outcomes. This edition also includes a special chapter on patient-reported outcomes and experiences.

Health at a Glance 2019 provides the latest comparable data and trends over time on population health and health system performance across OECD members, candidate and partner countries.

Health at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators compares key indicators for population health and health system performance across the 36 OECD member countries. Candidate and partner countries are also included where possible – Brazil, People’s Republic of China (China), Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation (Russia) and South Africa. On 25 May 2018, the OECD Council invited Colombia to become a Member. At the time of preparation of this publication, the deposit of Colombia’s instrument of accession to the OECD Convention was pending and therefore Colombia does not appear in the list of OECD Members and is not included in the OECD zone aggregates.

This chapter analyses a core set of indicators on health and health systems. Country dashboards shed light on how OECD countries compare across five dimensions: health status, risk factors for health, access, quality and outcomes, and health care resources. OECD snapshots summarise the extent of variation in performance across countries, as well as time trends. Finally, quadrant charts illustrate how much health spending is associated with staffing, access, quality and health outcomes.

The key objective of a health system is to improve the health of patients and populations. However, few health systems routinely ask patients about the outcomes and the experience of their care. This chapter presents patient-reported outcomes following hip and knee replacement, and breast cancer surgery, as well as patient-reported experiences of people with mental health problems, from a subset of OECD countries. Patients who underwent joint replacement surgery reported, on average, improved function and quality of life with hip replacements generating slightly higher gains. Women who underwent autologous breast reconstruction surgery reported, on average, better outcomes than women who underwent implant reconstruction. Meanwhile results of a 2016 Commonwealth Fund survey of 11 countries suggest that people with a mental health problem report a worse experience in some aspects of care. Such information is valuable for other health service users, for clinicians, providers, payers and policymakers.