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Life expectancy at birth (years), 2021: 81.2 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2023: 4
Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 3.4
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 1.8

Source: World health statistics 2025: monitoring health for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals. Tables of health statistics by country and area, WHO region and globally. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2025. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

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Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 81.5 years
Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2021: 2.4
Maternal mortality rate, deaths per 100,000 live births, 2020: 4.7
Congestive heart failure hospital admission in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 159
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 277

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

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Life Expectancy at Birth, 2022: 81.88
Infant Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.93
Under-Five Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 3.31

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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Life Expectancy at Birth, 2021: 81
Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021: 2
Infant Mortality Rate, 2021: 3
Under-5 Mortality Rate, 2021: 4
Maternal Mortality Ratio, 2020: 5

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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Maternal Deaths Per 100,000 Live Births, 2020: 5

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“From an international perspective, health status in Denmark can generally be characterized as good in terms of morbidity and mortality indicators. However, population health status has improved at a slower rate than in other European countries. In 2022, average life expectancy at birth in Denmark reached 81.3 years (83.2 years for women and 79.5 years for men), which is one year higher than the EU average (83.4 years) but lower than in other Nordic countries (Eurostat, 2023a).

“Since 1995, average life expectancy in Denmark increased significantly and at a pace similar to many other western European countries; the steady increase in life expectancy in Denmark since 2000 has been driven by mortality reductions from some of the most frequent causes of death (Table 1.3).

“The three most common causes of death in 2020 were cancer (29%), heart disease (14%) and respiratory diseases (10%). Mortality differs by gender: more men than women die from cancer and heart disease, while more women than men die from respiratory diseases, other circulatory diseases and dementia. The higher female mortality from dementia may reflect women’s longer average lifespan (Sundhedsdatastyrelsen, 2022a).In 2019, lung cancer was the most common cause of cancer death for men (54.4 deaths per 100 000 population) and women (47.4 deaths per 100 000 population). For women, breast cancer (29.1 deaths per 100 000 population) and colon cancer (16.9 deaths per 100 000 population) accounted for the second and third most common cancer deaths. Prostate cancer (44.2 deaths per 100 000 population) and colon cancer (21.3 deaths per 100 000 population) accounted for the second and third most common cancer deaths for men. In addition, in 2019, more than half of deaths due to respiratory disease were attributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (56.1 deaths per 100 000 men and 46.6 deaths per 100 000 women).”

Source: Birk HO, Vrangbæk K, Rudkjøbing A, Krasnik A, Eriksen A, Richardson E, Smith Jervelund S. Denmark: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2024; 26(1): i–152.

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“In 2022, life expectancy at birth in Denmark was 81.3 years – more than half a year higher than the EU average (80.7 years), but lower than in many other Nordic and western European countries (Figure 1). Life expectancy fell by 0.2 years between2019 and 2022, but this reduction was less than the EU average (0.6 years).

“On average, the life expectancy of Danish women was nearly four years longer than men in 2022 (83.2 years compared to 79.5 years). However, this gender gap in longevity has narrowed by one year since 2000 and is less than the EU average gap of 5.4 years.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2023), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2023, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

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“Denmark had relatively low rates of premature mortality from preventable and treatable causes in 2020 compared to other EU countries (Figure 12). This points to an effective public health and healthcare system in avoiding deaths from conditions that are deemed to be preventable or treatable through effective and timely treatment.

“As in many other EU countries, preventable mortality rates are more than two times greater than treatable mortality rates. The leading causes of preventable mortality in Denmark in 2020 were lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and alcohol-related deaths. This signals that further tobacco and alcohol control policies could reduce these premature deaths.”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2023), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2023, 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 July 23, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.