Germany: Preventive Healthcare - World Health Systems Facts

Life expectancy at birth (years), 2021: 80.5 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2023: 4
Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 3.7
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 2.3
Tuberculosis incidence (per 100,000 population), 2023: 4.8
Probability of dying from any of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease between age 30 and exact age 70 (%), 2021: 11.6%
Suicide mortality rate (per 100,000 population), 2021: 12.9
Diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) immunization coverage among 1-year-olds (%), 2023: 91%
Measles-containing-vaccine second-dose (MCV2) immunization coverage by the locally recommended age (%), 2023: 93%
Pneumococcal conjugate 3rd dose (PCV3) immunization coverage among 1-year olds (%), 2023: 82%
Human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization coverage estimates among 15 year-old girls (%), 2023: 54%
Prevalence of stunting in children under 5 (%), 2024: 2.2%
Prevalence of wasting in children under 5 (%), 2015-2024: 0.5%
Prevalence of overweight in children under 5 (%), 2024: 3.3%
Prevalence of anaemia in women aged 15-49 years (%), 2023: 14.0%

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.

“Avoidable mortality from both preventable and treatable causes combined was higher in Germany in 2020 than in many other EU countries, but still below the EU average. After years of steady reductions, as in other EU countries, the number of preventable deaths in 2020 increased in Germany as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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

“In Germany, nearly four in every ten deaths in 2019 can be attributed to behavioural risk factors such as smoking, dietary risks, alcohol consumption and low physical activity – a level comparable to the EU average. Environmental factors such as air pollution also account for a sizeable number of deaths: in 2019, an estimated 30,000 deaths (or 3 % of all deaths) were attributable to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone exposure alone (Figure 5).

“Unhealthy diets are associated with 14 % of annual deaths in Germany, which is similar to the rate of deaths linked to tobacco consumption. Self-reported data reveal that nearly one in five adults in Germany (18.5 %) were obese in 2019 – a proportion slightly higher than the EU average (16 %). Among adolescents, one fifth of German 15-year-olds were either overweight or obese in 2022 – a rate that has gradually increased over the past decade and now hovers around the average across EU countries. This trend has been fuelled in part by a relatively high prevalence of poor dietary habits, especially among male adolescents in Germany. In 2022, only 24 % of 15-year-old boys reported consuming vegetables on a daily basis, which is one of the lowest rates across the EU, but the share of boys who reported eating fruit every day increased to 31 % – slightly higher than the EU average (29 %).”

“Stronger prevention policies and greater public health efforts could reduce preventable mortality. Control of major risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol consumption is progressing slowly in Germany, but achievements are being made. For example, in 2021 it was decided to regularly increase the tobacco tax rate over the next five years, from 2022 to 2026 (DKFZ, 2022). However, even though lung cancer accounts for 21 % of preventable deaths, Germany was the last EU country to ban tobacco advertising on billboards and in cinemas in 2020 (the bans were phased in from 2021), and the country has not yet passed a smoking ban in private vehicles to protect children from second-hand smoke.”

“Hospital admissions for asthma, COPD, congestive heart failure and diabetes are considered avoidable, as patients with these diseases can effectively be managed in an outpatient setting. The total number of avoidable hospital admissions in Germany is one of the highest in the EU, at 728 per 100,000 population in 2021, of which the largest share was admissions for congestive heart failure. The significant declines in hospital admissions for asthma and COPD as well as for diabetes observed in 2020 and 2021 (Figure 12) should be interpreted in the context of the disruption caused by COVID-19, which severely impacted the capacity of hospitals to provide acute care and modified patients’ healthcare-seeking behaviour (see Section 5.3). These declines cannot therefore be understood as indicative of improved quality of primary care for these chronic conditions in outpatient settings.

“On the contrary, the high figures in comparison with the EU average may point to deficiencies within primary care and with integration of care. The latter is visible in the strict separation of ambulatory and hospital care within Germany. The Government Commission tasked with reforming the hospital landscape (see Sections 4 and 5.3) has proposed a reorganisation of care structures so that patients with conditions that can be treated within ambulatory settings are not misdirected to acute care in hospitals and emergency rooms (Regierungskommission, 2022).”

Germany: Preventive Healthcare - Lifestyle, environment, diet - National Policies - World Health Systems Facts

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 OECD member nations.

Page last updated July 21, 2024 by Doug McVay, Editor.