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Life expectancy at birth (years), 2021: 81.6 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2023: 12
Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 5.1
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 3.4

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, 2022: 82.85
Infant Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 3.94
Under-Five Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 4.58

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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Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as bad or very bad, 2021: 2.8%
Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as good or very good, by income quintile, 2021
– Highest quintile: 93.0%
– Lowest quintile: 80.0%
– Total: 88.3%
Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 81.6
Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2021: 4.5
Maternal mortality rate, deaths per 100,000 live births, 2020: 11.0
Congestive heart failure hospital admission in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 161
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 132
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as good or very good, 2021: 81%

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: 3
Infant Mortality Rate, 2021: 4
Under-5 Mortality Rate, 2021: 5
Maternal Mortality Ratio, 2020: 11

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: 11

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“Multiple indicators demonstrate that the health status of Indigenous peoples in Canada is well below the Canadian average in spite of some improvements in recent years. A significant gap in life expectancy remains between First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, and non-Indigenous Canadians, and the gap has persisted between 1996 and 2011 (Tjepkema et al., 2019). In 2011, the gap in life expectancy at age 1 year was highest between Inuit and non-Indigenous Canadians (11 years), followed by First Nations (9–10 years), and Métis peoples (4.5–5 year gap). Suicide rates among First Nations people, Métis and Inuit were significantly higher than the rate for non-Indigenous Canadians between 2011 and 2016, with the highest rates seen among Inuit and in particular among young people (Kumar & Tjepkema, 2019). First Nations people living on reserves also experience a much higher incidence of physical injuries than the Canadian average. For example, Guèvremont et al. (2017) analysed national data (excluding Quebec) that linked the census to hospital records and found significantly higher acute care hospitalization rates among Indigenous children and youth compared with non-Indigenous children and youth, with highest rates among First Nations children living on reserves and Inuit youth. There are some signs of a reduction in inequality in hospitalizations, with a steeper decline in the rate of injury hospitalization among Indigenous peoples in British Columbia compared with the total population in that province (George et al., 2015). Although Inuit populations are less affected by some chronic conditions, due in part to more traditional and less sedentary lives (Garner et al., 2015), they face significantly higher rates of tuberculosis, infant mortality, food insecurity and suicide than the general population (Inuit Tapirit Kanatami, 2018). As with Indigenous populations in other OECD countries such as Australia and the USA, the causes of these health disparities have long historical roots in colonization that has resulted in economic and social marginalization, intergenerational trauma, along with enormous long-lasting negative health impacts (Waldrum, Herring & Young, 2006; Mitrou et al., 2014).”

Source: Marchildon G.P., Allin S., Merkur S. Canada: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2020; 22(3): i–194.

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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 August 5, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.