Health spending rises; Round up; Soundbites; Benvenuto!; Economy; Food speculation question; Chinese flexibility welcomed; Slovenia joins the OECD; Plus ça change...

The use of information and communication technologies in the health sector lags behind its use in many other parts of the economy, yet the advantages and potential savings are evident. Policymakers can do much to help close the gap.

For millions of people worldwide, hunger and malnutrition are common everyday challenges. For some, even famine is a threat. But in many developed countries, food abundance brings other serious nutritional and health problems. Though these are being addressed, western habits are starting to spread.

The spread of unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles have led to rising rates of overweight and obesity. This has meant a greater burden of chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes.

One in nine women are diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their life and one in thirty die from the disease. Though survival rates are improving, due to a combination of increased awareness, earlier diagnosis and better treatments with innovative drugs, there are considerable differences in measured outcomes of cancer control across OECD countries. For example, while close to 90% of women aged 50-69 are screened annually in the Netherlands and Finland, only around 20% of women in that age group are screened in the Slovak Republic and Japan. Some countries that had low screening rates in 2000, such as the Czech and Slovak Republics, showed sharp increases by 2006, whereas some countries with already high rates, such as the US, Finland and Norway, reported declines.

The United States spent 16% of its national income (GDP) on health in 2007. This is by far the highest share in the OECD and more than seven percentage points higher than the average of 8.9% in OECD countries. Even France, Switzerland and Germany, the countries which, apart from the United States, spend the greatest proportion of national income on health, spent over 5 percentage points of GDP less: respectively 11.0%, 10.8% and 10.4% of their GDP.

Everyone puts off visits to the doctor and dentist at one point or another; but how often do people forego a check-up, treatment, or decide not to fill a prescription just because it costs too much?

The developing world needs millions of trained health workers immediately just to provide the most basic healthcare, yet doctors are leaving poor countries to go to richer ones.

The pharmaceutical industry’s important role in the OECD economy is reflected in expenditure, with a total of US$569 billion on pharmaceuticals (excluding pharmaceuticals for in-patients) in 2005.

Diabetes has become one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. Over 150 million adults are affected worldwide, with the number expected to double in the next 25 years.

In 2002, the cost of diabetes in the United States was an estimated $92 billion in medical expenditures and $40 billion in lost productivity, according to the American Diabetes Federation.

“Attitudes are the real disability”, says Henry Holden, a well-known comedian and advocate for the disabled. Education is clearly important in this respect, but ironically, schools themselves have much to do in how they deal with disabled students.

You rightly point out that “the supply of medical staff reflects global movements of labour” (No 262, Databank, July 2007). But many of us might disagree with your upbeat headline: “Healthy immigration”. In a report published in 2005, the Royal African Society argues that while recruitment of African medical professionals has shored up western health services, it has left the health sector in sending countries facing permanent crisis or even complete collapse.

Everyone accepts that education is vital for a healthy economy, but now there is strong evidence that it contributes to a healthy body too. Understanding the Social Outcomes of Learning makes the claim that those with more schooling also tend to have better health, as well as more civic engagement.

Ageing will boost demand for healthcare, but at a time when healthcare professionals are themselves ageing, how can that demand be met? Suppose a scenario with no growth in the demand for doctors in a country, and no migration either.

There are roughly 45 million disabled people living in Europe, but how do they and elderly people like to get around? They would call a taxi. The combination of the personal service that taxis offer, their wide availability and door-to-door operations enable them to respond particularly well to this population’s special travel needs. Although several countries have made progress in improving the accessibility of taxi services, much remains to be done.

In October 2006, 16-year-old Lisa Norris died at home in Scotland after receiving 17 overdoses of radiation treatment for a brain tumour. Nearly 200,000 people could be dying each year in the US because of in-hospital medical errors, suggests a 2004 study by healthcare company Health Grades. According to a recent survey conducted for the European Commission by Eurobarometer, four out of five Europeans think that medical error is an important issue in their country, and nearly one in four said that they or a member of their family had been personally affected by clinical mistakes.

The supply of medical staff also reflects global movements of labour. Indeed, there were some 1.3 million foreign born health professionals–nurses, doctors, pharmacists, dentists, etc.–living in OECD countries in 2000, according to a special report in the latest International Migration Outlook.

Whole communities in the developing world are being crippled by neglected infectious diseases. Changing the way intellectual property rights are managed is vital for attracting the pharmaceutical investment needed to tackle them. Every eight months a new infectious disease appears, joining the roster of those that already affect one in six people on earth. The vast majority of those infected live in developing nations.

Are you a left-brain or a right-brain person? Do you learn while you sleep? Do men and boys have different brains than women and girls? Popular misconceptions such as these pepper ads, magazine covers and conversations. What is fiction and what is fact, and where did they originate?

Traditionally a male bastion in many countries, the medical profession has seen the proportion of female doctors steadily increasing, accounting now for an average of 38% of all doctors in OECD countries, up from 24% a quarter of a century ago.

The performance of health care systems is under scrutiny. The Health Care Quality Indicator Project can help identify what works and what does not. And that will help policy decisions too.

Switzerland’s health system is arguably one of the world’s best, but at what cost? This is a question raised in a new report produced jointly by the OECD and the World Health Organization (WHO).

The public cost of health and long-term care in OECD countries will double by 2050 if current trends continue, a new OECD report finds. The rising medical demands of ageing and wealthier populations could send average health costs in the OECD area up from 6.7% of GDP to 12.8%. Even if governments manage to contain that rise, spending would still reach the equivalent of around 10% of GDP by the middle of the century.

Is there a connection between health spending and life expectancy? Not necessarily. As the latest edition of the OECD in Figures 2005 points out, the Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the OECD area, but their health spending, at nearly 8% of GDP, is far from being the highest. The US on the other hand has the highest health spending at some 15%, yet it clocks in at just 22nd when it comes to life expectancy–Americans can nevertheless expect to live past 77. The lowest spender is Korea (5.6% of GDP), with a life expectancy also of 77 years.