Austria: Health System Outcomes - Health Systems Facts

Life Expectancy at Birth (2016)
– Male: 79.4; Female: 84.2; Both Genders: 81.8
Maternal Mortality Ratio (per 100,000 live births) (2015): 4
Neonatal Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births) (2017): 2
Probability of Dying from any of Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Chronic Respiratory Diseases Between Age 30 and Exact Age 70 (%) (2017):
– Male: 14.4%; Female: 8.5%; Both Genders: 11.4%

Source: World health statistics 2019: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/324835/9789241565707-eng.pdf
https://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2019/en/

Neonatal Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018): 2
Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018): 3
Under-5 Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2018):
Male: 4; Female: 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.”

Source: UNICEF (2019). The State of the World’s Children 2019. Children, Food and Nutrition: Growing well in a changing world. UNICEF, New York.
https://www.unicef.org/reports/state-of-worlds-children-2019
https://www.unicef.org/media/60806/file/SOWC-2019.pdf

Percentage of hospitalized patients with at least one health care-associated infection, 2015-17: 3.54%
Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) hospital admission in adults, 2017 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 248
Congestive heart failure (CHF) hospital admission in adults, 2017 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 236
Diabetes hospital admission in adults, 2017 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 162

Source: OECD (2019), Health at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/4dd50c09-en.
https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/health-at-a-glance-19991312.htm

“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.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/about-us/partners/observatory/publications/health-system-reviews-hits
http://www.euro.who.int/en/about-us/partners/observatory/publications/health-system-reviews-hits/full-list-of-country-hits

“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%.”

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

Page last updated Oct. 20, 2020 by Doug McVay, Editor.