This Working Paper examines income-related inequalities in health care service utilisation in OECD countries. It extends a previous analysis (Van Doorslaer and Masseria, 2004) to 2008-2009 for 13 countries, and adds new results for 6 countries, for doctor and dentist visits, and cancer...

This paper provides an overview of past and projected future trends in adult overweight and obesity in OECD countries. Using individual-level data from repeated cross-sectional national surveys, some of the main determinants and pathways underlying the current obesity epidemic are explored, and...

An epidemic of obesity has been developing in virtually all OECD countries over the last 30 years. Existing evidence provides strong suggestions that such epidemic has affected certain social groups more than others. In particular, education appears to be associated with a lower likelihood of...

The ratio of health expenditure to GDP, which in macroeconomic terms is an indicator which summarises the financing needs of a national health system, is likely to rise in countries for which the GDP falls. Over the past four decades, health expenditure has risen in most countries at a faster...

In 2008, the OECD launched a survey to collect information on the health systems characteristics of member countries. This paper presents the informaton provided by 29 of these countries in 2009. It describes country-specific arrangements to organise the population coverage against health risks...