World Health Day

The World Health Day is celebrated on 7 April – this year's motto is »Beat diabetes«

In 2016 we mark the 66th World Health Day; this year focus is on diabetes. From 2010 on Slovenia annually assigns about 9% of its GDP to health. The most common causes of death are diseases of the circulatory system and various cancers.

  • 31 March 2016 at 10:30
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It is no coincidence the World Health Day is marked on 7 April, since precisely on this date 68 years ago the World Health Organization (WHO) was established, one of the leading organizations in the world, which engage in the current global health issues and dictate the direction of future development.

This year's motto of the World Health Day is "Beat diabetes"
We usually realize that health is our most important asset only when it is too late or when we get sick and would be willing to do anything to regain it. Yet, it is usually too late. The old adage "Prevention is better than cure" is still taken too lightly, even though national and international health organizations keep trying to convince us with different campaigns and activities of the importance of the active and healthy lifestyle, as for instance of the importance of healthy nutrition, exercise, screening programs, the risk of various dependencies, etc. Therefore, every year the World Health Day highlights one aspect that is related to the health of an individual. Thus in 2015 the motto was "How safe is our food?", and this year’s motto is "Beat diabetes".

Hereinafter let’s take a look at what statistical data actually say, for instance: how much funds Slovenia allocates for health, especially for prevention, and where this puts Slovenia internationally, how we self-assess our health condition, what diseases we are predominantly exposed to, etc.

Total expenditure on health care in 2013 amounted to 9.1% of GDP
These 9.1% comprise also investments in health, which, at least in Slovenia, vary greatly from year to year, so let’s rather look only at current expenditure on health. If we don’t take into account the investments, in 2013 8.7% of GDP was spent for health care, and Slovenia ranked 15th among the 23 European countries that gathered data in line with the internationally comparable methodology of the System of Health Accounts (SHA). In 2013, most of GDP for health care, about 11%, was allocated in each of the countries: the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and France, and the least, 6% and 5% of GDP, respectively, in Poland, Estonia and Turkey.

From year to year the most funds are allocated to curative treatment as well as medical goods
As regards the structure of health care expenditure by type of medical treatment, in 2013 slightly more than three-quarters of expenditure in Slovenia were assigned to financing the services of curative treatment and medical goods. Moreover, the share of expenditure slightly declined from 2003 to 2013, by 0.4 or 0.5 of a percentage point, respectively. On the other hand, the share of expenditure on prevention and public health services in the observed 11-year period increased by 0.2 of a percentage point, to 3.8% (which is also in line with the preventive policy). Expressed as the share of GDP this amounted to 0.3% in 2013, which compared to other European countries ranked us in the gold middle (together with Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Norway and Sweden). Otherwise, European countries earmarked for prevention from 0.1% (Greece) to 0.5% of their GDP (Finland). 

Infographic 1: Causes of death by sex1), Slovenia, 2014

1) Causes of death by International Classification of Disease (ICD-10).
Sources: NIJZ, SURS

Circulatory and various cancer diseases remain the most common causes of death
In 2014, circulatory and various cancer diseases (i. e. neoplasms) were the most common cause of death in Slovenia, namely in almost three-quarters of deaths. Gender differences were quite significant: while women got sick and died predominantly due to diseases of the circulatory system (in almost half of the cases), this was not the case in men with a third less death cases (in a little more than one-third). On the other hand, men got sick and died predominantly due to various cancer diseases (in a little more than a third of cases), while in women there were a little more than a quarter of such cases.

Self-assessment of health condition as good or very good
The latest available data from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions 2014 showed that the opinion of nearly two-thirds of persons in Slovenia was that their health condition was good and of a third of them very good; men were slightly more optimistic than women (by 6 percentage points). Of course, self-assessment was strongly conditioned by age; the difference between the young in the first 10-year age group (16–25 years), where more than 90% assessed it as good or very good, and the elderly (66+) was more than 60 percentage points. Moreover, the self-assessment with each successive age class decreased by about 10 percentage points. Differences in the self-assessment were also significant with regard to the status of the person. The proportion of those assessing the health condition as good or very good was the greatest among those in the education system (over 90%) and among the employed and self-employed persons (nearly 80%).

In view of the data there is no cause for concern, as the values of health indicators rank Slovenia in the gold middle among the European countries. We are especially glad that the recent data on the self-assessment of the health condition of the Slovenes indicate also a positive view not only to health but also to life itself. In brief, the statistical data show that we are on the right path.
When making use of the data and information of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia, always add: "Source: SURS". More: Copyright.