Western Europe ~ Healthiest Region!

New rankings of health systems have placed Western Europe on the top of the list. Contrary to popular belief, the survey indicates that spending a lot of money is not enough to guarantee high standards of health. The UK and US have ranked in relatively low as compared to other countries with less health expenditure.

The survey of the population health in 175 countries was recently released in March 2002. 9 Western European countries took the top 10 places on the list, with Belgium leading and followed by Iceland, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Italy and Norway. Australia is the highest placed non-Western European country in the list, in joint tenth place with Germany and Denmark. The United States was ranked 17th, just behind Israel, while the UK came in 23rd place, after Greece.

Health indicators that were taken into consideration include the expenditure of the individual country on health, life expectancy, infant immunization rates and death rates of mothers and babies. The survey was developed by World Markets Research Center, a company that analyses businesses.

The results of the survey clearly show that devoting a large proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) to healthcare does not equate to a healthy population.