Austria: Health System Outcomes

Life expectancy at birth (years), 2021: 81.0 years
Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births), 2023: 6
Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 3.1
Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 live births), 2023: 2.0
Probability of dying from any of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease between age 30 and exact age 70 (%), 2021: 9.9%

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.

Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as bad or very bad, 2021: 7.4%
Population aged 15 years and over rating their own health as good or very good, by income quintile, 2021
– Highest quintile: 81.8%
– Lowest quintile: 61.9%
– Total: 72.2%
Life expectancy at birth, 2021: 81.3 years
Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2021: 2.7
Maternal mortality rate, deaths per 100,000 live births, 2020: 5.2
Congestive heart failure hospital admission in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 220
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions in adults, age-sex standardized rate per 100,000 population, 2021: 144
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as good or very good, 2021: 50%
Adults aged 65 and over rating their own health as poor or very poor, by income, 2021
– Lowest quintile: 23%
– Highest quintile: 10%
– Total: 17%

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

Life Expectancy at Birth, 2022: 82.41
Infant Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 2.50
Under-Five Mortality Rate, 2022 (per 1,000 live births): 3.03

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.

Life Expectancy at Birth, 2021: 82
Neonatal Mortality Rate, 2021: 2
Infant Mortality Rate, 2021: 3
Under-5 Mortality Rate, 2021: 3
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.

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

Source: Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2020: estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UNDESA/Population Division. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

“In 2022, life expectancy at birth in Austria was 81.1 years, 0.4 years higher than the EU average but two years lower than in Spain and Sweden, the two EU countries with the highest life expectancy (Figure 1). Life expectancy in Austria fell by0.9 years between 2019 and 2022 due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic. The reduction in 2020 was the biggest since the government began recording life expectancy in 1951.

“The gender gap in life expectancy was below5 years in 2022 (78.8 years for men, 83.5 years for women), which is slightly less than the EU average (5.4 years).”

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

“Potentially avoidable hospital admissions for chronic conditions have historically been higher in Austria than in most other European countries but have declined over the past decade and are now closer to the EU averages for some diseases. Nearly 145 admissions for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 120 for diabetes were recorded per 100,000 adults in Austria in 2021, rates that remain slightly higher than the EU average. While the decline in the number of asthma and COPD admission rate between 2014 and 2021 was slightly slower in Austria (-50 %) than in the EU (-53 %), the rate of diabetes admissions declined more rapidly in Austria (-45 %, compared to -34 % across the EU) (Figure 14). The marked decline in admissions observed in 2020 should be interpreted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted non-COVID-19 hospital activity and modified healthcare-seeking behaviours (see Section 5.3). These declines cannot therefore be understood as indicative of improved accessibility or quality of primary care for these chronic conditions in outpatient settings.”

“Life expectancy at birth in Austria is increasing. At 81.3 years it remains above the EU average (80.6 years), but it is lower than the countries with the highest life expectancy in 2015 (83.0 years in Spain and 82.7 years in Italy) (OECD, 2017e). Between 2000 and 2015 the general positive trend in life expectancy was somewhat less pronounced in Austria with an increase of 3 years compared to the overall increase in the EU (3.3 years) (OECD and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, 2017). In terms of healthy life years, the prospects for healthy, problem-free life years are below the international average, indicating room for improvement. With 58.1 years for women and 57.9 years for men, the number of healthy life years at birth was below the EU-28 average in 2015 (63.3 years for women and 62.6 years for men). A negative trend has been observed for women, whose healthy life expectancy decreased by 2 years between 2005 and 2015 (Eurostat, 2017d) (see Table 1.4). Considering infant mortality Austria records levels that were below the EU-28 average in 2015 (3.1 deaths per 1000 live births versus 3.6 per 1,000 live births) (Eurostat, 2018e).

“More than two thirds of deaths are caused by cardiovascular diseases (47% for women, 38% for men) and cancer (24% for women, 29% for men). Diabetes is one of the most increasing causes of deaths. While it ranked the tenth leading cause of death in 2000, it was the fifth leading cause of death in 2014 (OECD and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, 2017) (see section 1.4).”

Source: Bachner F, Bobek J, Habimana K, Ladurner J, Lepuschütz L, Ostermann H, Rainer L, Schmidt A E, Zuba M, Quentin W, Winkelmann J. Austria: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018; 20(3): 1 – 256.

“Amenable mortality refers to deaths that could have been avoided if people had had access to timely and effective health care. With 109 deaths per 100,000 population (age-standardized), Austria recorded amenable mortality rates that were significantly lower than the EU-28 average (126 deaths) but these are higher compared to the best performing countries in the EU in 2014. With 302 deaths per 100,000 population, mortality from cardiovascular diseases was above the OECD 35 average (282) in 2014 while cancer mortality is slightly below the OECD-31 average (197 versus 204 deaths per 100,000 population) (OECD, 2017b; OECD, 2018d). The 5-year net survival rate for breast cancer increased slightly since 2000–2004 and was slightly below (84.8%) the OECD-31 average (85.0%) for the period 2010–2014 (see Figure 7.2). In 2012, the breast cancer incidence rate was with 68.0 per 100,000 population also below the OECD-34 average of 74.2 (age-standardized) (OECD, 2017b). The breast cancer screening programme implemented in 2014 aims to improve breast cancer survival (http://www.frueh-erkennen.at/).

“Unhealthy life styles are important challenges for the Austrian health system. This refers particularly to tobacco and alcohol consumption, for which Austrian indicators are well above EU-28 average. Some 24% of Austrian adults reported daily smoking in 2014, which is more than three percentage points above the EU-28 average, and there is no downward trend as in most other EU Member States. In fact, smoking prevalence has been stagnating since 1997 in Austria. Unlike many other EU countries, Austria has not yet enacted a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. With a yearly consumption of 12.3 litres of pure alcohol per capita, Austria has the third highest rate of alcohol consumption in the EU (more than 2.0 litres above the EU average). Although, obesity rates (14.3% of adults) were 1 percentage point below the EU-28 average in 2014, obesity is on the rise. For example, the share of obese men doubled from 8.0% to 16.0% during 1991–2014 (see Table 1.6). Overall, behavioural risk factors (including tobacco and alcohol consumption, as well as unhealthy diet and low physical activity) are estimated to cause 28% of the overall burden of disease in 2015, which is slightly below the EU-28 average of 29%.”

Austria: Health System Outcomes - National Policies - World Health Systems Facts

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Page last updated July 31, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.