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Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 77.1 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2020: 3
Under-five mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), 2022: 3
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1,000 live births), 2022: 1

Source: World health statistics 2024: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals: Statistical Annex. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. Last accessed May 28, 2024.

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Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as bad or very bad, 2021: 8.6%
Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as good or very good, by income quintile, 2021
– Highest quintile: 83.5%
– Lowest quintile: 51.8%
– Total: 67.7%
Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 77.2 years
Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2021: 2.2
Maternal mortality rate, deaths per 100,000 live births, 2020: 3.4
Congestive heart failure hospital admission in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 357
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 119
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as good or very good, 2021: 28%
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as poor or very poor, by income, 2021
– Lowest quintile: 27%
– Highest quintile: 12%
– Total: 21%
Limitations in daily activities in adults aged 65 and over, 2021:
– Severe limitations: 16%
– Some limitations: 37%

Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.

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Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021: 1
Infant Mortality Rate, 2021: 2
Under-5 Mortality Rate, 2021: 3
Maternal Mortality Ratio, 2020: 3

Note: “Under-5 mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 5 years of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Infant mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 1 year of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Neonatal mortality rate – Probability of dying during the first 28 days of life, expressed per 1,000 live births.”
“Maternal mortality ratio – Number of deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births during the same time period (modelled estimates).”

Source: United Nations Children’s Fund, The State of the World’s Children 2023: For every child, vaccination, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, Florence, April 2023.

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Life Expectancy at Birth, 2022: 78.13
Infant Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.35
Under-Five Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.87

Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2023). Data Portal, custom data acquired via website. United Nations: New York. Accessed 12 May 2023.

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Maternal Deaths Per 100,000 Live Births, 2020: 3

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“Czechia has reduced its amenable mortality, from 140.7 deaths per 100,000 population in 2011 to 120.3 per 100,000 in 2019 (Eurostat, 2022). Reductions in amenable mortality can be seen across Europe, and Czechia ranks near the middle, between countries like Switzerland, with an age- and gender-standardized amenable mortality rate of around 50 and Romania, with a rate above 200 deaths per 100,000 population in 2019 (see Fig.7.7).

“Diseases of the circulatory system, such as the ischaemic heart disease (30.1 per 100,000 population), cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke (9.1), and the hypertensive disease (3.9) comprise a significant share of amenable mortality in Czechia. Mortality from cancer is the second leading cause of amenable mortality, represented by mortality of colorectal cancer (17.9) and breast cancer (9.0).

“Preventable mortality, on the other hand, stood at 188.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2019, representing a decline of 16.6% from 2011 (225.7 per 100,000). Although Czechia has higher rates in preventing the onset of diseases than some neighbours, many EU countries pushed preventable mortality below 100 deaths per 100,000 population in 2019 (see Fig.7.8). As lung cancer is a leading cause of preventable mortality, comprehensive tobacco control legislation was introduced in 2017, and the reduction of smoking has also been enshrined as a priority area in Health 2030. On a broader scale, strengthening public health and prevention in Czechia is recognized as an area for improvement (see Section 5.1). Although vaccination rates are traditionally high, the development of health literacy and reduction of risk factors present paths to reduce preventable mortality further.”

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“The inequity of population health outcomes is a further concern. Health outcome differences are documented along socioeconomic groups, for example, for disabled persons, the Roma population, and by age, employment status and along educational lines. Other factors, such as marital status, also seem to have an impact on health outcomes in Czechia (Tillmann et al., 2017). Finally, regional disparities hinder the realization of health equity across the population. With the country administratively divided into 14 regions, Prague and the Středočeský Region have a unique role in health service provision due to the concentration of highly specialized services in Prague and the use of these services by people travelling from the Středočeský Region. The Karlovarský and Ústecký Regions, on the other hand, register fewer human resources, based on 2017 data (Winkelmann, Muench, & Maier, 2020; Dlouhý, 2021). Beyond physical and human resources, it is likely that disparities are not following a clear urban–rural divide and that perhaps socioeconomic factors and health behaviour are creating sub-regional disparities (Hübelová & Kozumplíková, 2022). For instance, stark regional variations are documented in screening attendance for breast and cervical cancer across Czech municipalities: VZP [Všeobecná zdravotní pojišt´ovna, General Health Insurance Fund] claims data from 2017 show screening that varied from 38.3% to 69.8% for breast cancer and from 32.5% to 55.0% for cervical cancer (Altová et al., 2021).”

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“In 2020, life expectancy at birth in Czechia was 78.3 years, which is 2.3 years below the EU average, although it was among the highest in central and eastern European countries (Figure 1). It increased by more than three years between 2000 and 2020. The gender gap in life expectancy was six years, which is higher than the EU average (5.6 years).

“In 2019, there was a substantial difference between the capital region of Prague and the rest of the country, and smaller variations across regions. For instance, life expectancy for men living in Prague was more than 4.0 years higher than for men living in the Ústecký region.”

OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Czechia: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

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“Previous increases in life expectancy between 2000 and 2019 in Czechia can be attributed mainly to reductions in mortality from leading causes of death.

“Notably, the standardised death rate from circulatory diseases decreased by almost 40%, reflecting in part the concentration of highly specialised cardiology and stroke care into centres set up in 2011 (see Section 4). However, circulatory diseases still accounted for over 40% of all deaths in Czechia in 2019, while cancer accounted for another 25% (Figure 2). Lung cancer remained the most frequent cause of death by cancer. Diabetes is another notable cause of death in Czechia: its standardised death rate is the fourth highest across the EU.

“In 2020, COVID-19 officially accounted for about 12,000 deaths in Czechia (9.2% of all deaths), rising to 30,400 by the end of August 2021. By then, the COVID-19 mortality rate was almost 80% higher than the EU average (2,843 per million compared with 1,591 in the EU). The broader indicator of excess mortality suggests that the direct and indirect death toll related to COVID-19 in 2020 might have been even higher (Box 1).”

OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Czechia: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated January 30, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.