Within the OECD, most of the work on health is carried out by the Health Division of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs. 

Our mission – advising policy makers and informing public and private stakeholders and citizens on how to address demands for more and better quality healthcare – is particularly important with public budgets under strain. We develop reliable statistics of health system performance and help countries benchmark their policies against high-performing health systems.

To learn more about our areas of work, download our brochure.

• Read our latest Policy Briefs The future of telemedicine after COVID-19 and Investing in health systems to protect society and boost the economy: Priority investments and order-of-magnitude cost estimates, and our paper on Excess mortality: Measuring the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19
• Access our Initial Health System Responses to COVID-19 (2020) Tracker

See more health analysis on COVID-19 and learn about our work on Health Systems Resilience

The Country Cancer Profiles identify strengths, challenges and specific areas of action for each of the 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway, to guide investment and interventions at the EU, national and regional levels under the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. The European Cancer Inequalities Registry also supports Flagship 1 of the Zero Pollution Action Plan.

Each Country Cancer Profile provides a short synthesis of:

• the national cancer burden
• risk factors for cancer, focusing on behavioural and environment risk factors
• early detection programmes
• cancer care performance, focusing on accessibility, care quality, costs and the impact of COVID-19 on cancer care.

The Profiles are the work of the OECD in co-operation with the European Commission. This is the first edition of the EU Country Cancer Profiles 2023, published on 1 February 2023.

Download all EU Country Cancer Profiles 2023, either in English or in their native languages.

The Country Health Profiles provide a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and health systems in the EU/European Economic area, emphasizing the particular characteristics and challenges in each country against a backdrop of cross-country comparisons. Each Country Health Profile provides a short synthesis of:

• health status (including mortality from COVID-19)
• risk factors to health (including behavioural and environmental risks)
• the organisation of the health system and health spending
• and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system to the pandemic

The Country Health Profiles are an important step in the European Commission’s State of Health in the EU cycle and are the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in cooperation with the European Commission. This is the third series of biennial country health profiles, published on 13 December 2021.

The 2023 edition of the Country Health Profiles will be released on December 15.

The OECD Reviews of Public Health provide in-depth analysis and policy recommendations to strengthen priority areas of countries’ public health systems, highlighting best practice examples that allow learning from shared experiences, and the spreading of innovative approaches.

Topics covered within this series of health reviews include unhealthy diets and obesity, preventing harmful alcohol use, health checks and preventive screening, responding to public health emergencies, and more.

• OECD Reviews of Public Health: Latvia - A Healthier Tomorrow (December 2020)
• OECD Reviews of Public Health: Korea - A Healthier Tomorrow (March 2020)
• OECD Reviews of Public Health: Japan - A Healthier Tomorrow (February 2019)
• OECD Reviews of Public Health: Chile - A Healthier Tomorrow (January 2019)

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The synthesis report, Caring for Quality in Health: Lessons learnt from 15 reviews of healthcare quality, was released on January 10, 2017.

Country reports released for Korea and Israel (in 2012), Denmark and Sweden (in 2013), Norway, the Czech Republic, Japan and Turkey (in 2014), Australia, Italy and Portugal (in 2015), the United Kingdom (2016).

Access the press releases and Assessment and recommendations for each country on the dedicated Reviews of National Healthcare Quality page. 

The country reports are available for download on the OECD iLibrary.