SPAIN has the second-highest life expectancy in the EU after Italy, and levels of health among the population are generally good, even though chronic conditions are on the increase, says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Life expectancy in Spain is the third-highest on the European continent, at 82.4 years, beaten by Italy at 82.7 and Switzerland at 82.8 - coming out on top of the world. Worldwide, Italy and Japan were in joint second place at 82.7 years, putting Spain in fourth place on the planet.
Life expectancy for countries in the OECD was lowest for Mexico, at 74.2, largely due to poor nutrition, obesity leading to cardiovascular illnesses and diabetes, poor access to healthcare – insufficient numbers of doctors, nurses and hospital beds – and 50 per cent of healthcare expenditure coming out of Mexicans' pockets, leading to a downward sliding scale of life expectancy in relation to financial wealth.
This calculation did not include the so-called 'emerging' countries of the OECD – Brazil, Russia, India, China (known as the BRIC countries), Indonesia and South Africa.
South Africa's life expectancy is the lowest of all at barely 55 years, largely thought to be due to HIV and AIDS epidemics which broke out in the late 1980s and are taking their toll nowadays, and limited access to ongoing medical treatment which, in the first world, can ensure HIV-positive patients lead a normal life and live to old age.
Turkey and the USA had lower-than-average life expectancies, although that of Turkey has grown considerably in the last decade, and the OECD says there is a direct connection between how much the public has to spend on its own healthcare and how long they can be expected to live...
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com