In 2023, Singapore dominated the ranking of the world's health and health systems, followed by Japan and South Korea. The health index score is calculated by evaluating various indicators that assess the health of the population, and access to the services required to sustain good health, including health outcomes, health systems, sickness and risk factors, and mortality rates. The health and health system index score of the top ten countries with the best healthcare system in the world ranged between 82 and 86.9, measured on a scale of zero to 100.

Global Health Security Index  Numerous health and health system indexes have been developed to assess various attributes and aspects of a nation's healthcare system. One such measure is the Global Health Security (GHS) index. This index evaluates the ability of 195 nations to identify, assess, and mitigate biological hazards in addition to political and socioeconomic concerns, the quality of their healthcare systems, and their compliance with international finance and standards. In 2021, the United States was ranked at the top of the GHS index, but due to multiple reasons, the U.S. government failed to effectively manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The GHS Index evaluates capability and identifies preparation gaps; nevertheless, it cannot predict a nation's resource allocation in case of a public health emergency.

Universal Health Coverage Index  Another health index that is used globally by the members of the United Nations (UN) is the universal health care (UHC) service coverage index. The UHC index monitors the country's progress related to the sustainable developmental goal (SDG) number three. The UHC service coverage index tracks 14 indicators related to reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, service capacity, and access to care. The main target of universal health coverage is to ensure that no one is denied access to essential medical services due to financial hardships. In 2021, the UHC index scores ranged from as low as 21 to a high score of 91 across 194 countries. 

The healthcare ranking reflects the quality of health care and access to health services in different countries. The assessment includes various factors such as life expectancy, access to medical services, healthcare funding, and technologies.

In 2023, the health care system in Finland ranked first with a care index score of ****, followed by Belgium and Japan. Care systems index score is measured using multiple indicators from various public databases, it evaluates the capacity of a health system to treat and cure diseases and illnesses, once it is detected in the population This statistic shows the care systems ranking of countries worldwide in 2023, by their index score.

According to a 2021 health care systems ranking among selected high-income countries, the U.S. came last in the overall ranking of its health care system performance. The overall ranking was based on five performance categories, including access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes. For the category access to care, which measures affordability and timeliness of health care, the U.S. also ranked last, whilst the Netherlands took first place. This statistic illustrates the access to care rankings of the United States' health care system compared to ten other high-income countries in 2021.

About the Dataset

This dataset contains Quality of Life indices for various countries around the globe, extracted from the Numbeo website. The data provides valuable metrics for comparing countries based on several aspects of living standards, which can assist in decisions such as choosing a place to live or analyzing global trends in quality of life.

OBS: The code to generate this dataset is presented on: https://www.kaggle.com/code/marcelobatalhah/web-scrapping-quality-of-life-index

Columns in the Dataset

1. Rank:
   The global rank of the country based on its Quality of Life Index according to Year (1 = highest quality of life).

2. Country:
   The name of the country.

3. Quality of Life Index:
   A composite index that evaluates the overall quality of life in a country by combining other indices, such as Safety, Purchasing Power, and Health Care.

4. Purchasing Power Index:
   Measures the relative purchasing power of the average consumer in a country compared to New York City (baseline = 100).

5. Safety Index:
   Indicates the safety level of a country. A higher score suggests a safer environment.

6. Health Care Index:
   Evaluates the quality and accessibility of healthcare in the country.

7. Cost of Living Index:
   Measures the relative cost of living in a country compared to New York City (baseline = 100).

8. Property Price to Income Ratio:
   Compares the affordability of real estate by dividing the average property price by the average income.

9. Traffic Commute Time Index:
   Reflects the average time spent commuting due to traffic.

10. Pollution Index:
    Rates the level of pollution in the country (air, water, etc.).

11. Climate Index:
    Rates the favorability of the climate in the country (higher = more favorable).

12. Year:
    Year when the metrics were extracted.

Key Insights from the Dataset

• The Quality of Life Index aggregates multiple indicators, making it a useful single metric to compare countries.
• Specific indices such as Safety Index or Health Care Index allow for focused analysis on areas like security or healthcare quality.
• Cost of Living Index and Purchasing Power Index can help determine the affordability of living in each country.

How the Data Was Collected

• The dataset was built using web scraping techniques in Python.
• The data was extracted from the "Quality of Life Rankings by Country" page on Numbeo.
• Libraries used:
  • requests for retrieving webpage content.
  • BeautifulSoup for parsing the HTML and extracting relevant information.
  • pandas for organizing and storing the data in a structured format.

Possible Applications

1. Relocation Decision Making:
   Use the dataset to compare countries and identify destinations with high quality of life, safety, and healthcare.

2. Global Analysis:
   Perform exploratory data analysis (EDA) to identify trends and correlations across quality of life metrics.

3. Visualization:
   Plot global maps, bar charts, or other visualizations to better understand the data.

4. Predictive Modeling:
   Use this dataset as a base for machine learning tasks, like predicting Quality of Life Index based on other metrics.

In 2025, South Africa had the highest health care index in Africa with a score of 63.8, followed by Kenya with 62 points. These scores, for both countries, are considered to be reasonably high. The health care index takes into account factors such as the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, and cost.

In 2023, Norway ranked first with a health index score of 83, followed by Iceland and Sweden. The health index score is calculated by evaluating various indicators that assess the health of the population, and access to the services required to sustain good health, including health outcomes, health systems, sickness and risk factors, and mortality rates. The statistic shows the health and health systems ranking of European countries in 2023, by their health index score.

China Index: CSI 300 Index: Health Care data was reported at 8,514.350 31Dec2004=1000 in Nov 2025. This records a decrease from the previous number of 8,964.670 31Dec2004=1000 for Oct 2025. China Index: CSI 300 Index: Health Care data is updated monthly, averaging 7,882.270 31Dec2004=1000 from Jul 2007 (Median) to Nov 2025, with 221 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18,614.674 31Dec2004=1000 in Jun 2021 and a record low of 2,139.340 31Dec2004=1000 in Oct 2008. China Index: CSI 300 Index: Health Care data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by China Securities Index Co., Ltd.. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Financial Market – Table CN.ZA: China Securities Index .

China Index: Shanghai Stock Exchange: Health Care data was reported at 5,933.270 31Dec2003=1000 in 14 May 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 5,893.170 31Dec2003=1000 for 13 May 2025. China Index: Shanghai Stock Exchange: Health Care data is updated daily, averaging 5,950.950 31Dec2003=1000 from Jan 2005 (Median) to 14 May 2025, with 4943 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 11,615.656 31Dec2003=1000 in 01 Jul 2021 and a record low of 2,681.395 31Dec2003=1000 in 18 Jan 2012. China Index: Shanghai Stock Exchange: Health Care data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by China Securities Index Co., Ltd.. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Financial Market – Table CN.ZA: China Securities Index : Daily.

The global Ocean Health Index measures the state of the world’s oceans.The global OHI score for the 2024 assessment was 69, which was quite a bit lower than last year’s score of 73. This was due to COVID-related declines in tourism and recreation [the 2024 scores reflect 2021 data]. You can explore this and other goals using the interactive map which shows how different countries and goals contribute to the global score, as well as how the score has changed since 2012. Click on colored regions (i.e. EEZs) to see short country summaries.

United States Index: NYSE Health Care data was reported at 15,506.530 31Dec2002=5000 in Oct 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 16,299.340 31Dec2002=5000 for Sep 2018. United States Index: NYSE Health Care data is updated monthly, averaging 7,026.580 31Dec2002=5000 from Dec 2002 (Median) to Oct 2018, with 191 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 16,299.340 31Dec2002=5000 in Sep 2018 and a record low of 4,504.980 31Dec2002=5000 in Feb 2009. United States Index: NYSE Health Care data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by New York Stock Exchange. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.Z001: NYSE: Indexes.

Quality of Life Index (higher is better) is an estimation of overall quality of life by using an empirical formula which takes into account purchasing power index (higher is better), pollution index (lower is better), house price to income ratio (lower is better), cost of living index (lower is better), safety index (higher is better), health care index (higher is better), traffic commute time index (lower is better) and climate index (higher is better).

Current formula (written in Java programming language):

index.main = Math.max(0, 100 + purchasingPowerInclRentIndex / 2.5 - (housePriceToIncomeRatio * 1.0) - costOfLivingIndex / 10 + safetyIndex / 2.0 + healthIndex / 2.5 - trafficTimeIndex / 2.0 - pollutionIndex * 2.0 / 3.0 + climateIndex / 3.0);

For details how purchasing power (including rent) index, pollution index, property price to income ratios, cost of living index, safety index, climate index, health index and traffic index are calculated please look up their respective pages.

Formulas used in the past

Formula used between June 2017 and Decembar 2017

We decided to decrease weight from costOfLivingIndex in this formula:

index.main = Math.max(0, 100 + purchasingPowerInclRentIndex / 2.5 - (housePriceToIncomeRatio * 1.0) - costOfLivingIndex / 5 + safetyIndex / 2.0 + healthIndex / 2.5 - trafficTimeIndex / 2.0 - pollutionIndex * 2.0 / 3.0 + climateIndex / 3.0);

The World Happiness 2017, which ranks 155 countries by their happiness levels, was released at the United Nations at an event celebrating International Day of Happiness on March 20th. The report continues to gain global recognition as governments, organizations and civil society increasingly use happiness indicators to inform their policy-making decisions. Leading experts across fields – economics, psychology, survey analysis, national statistics, health, public policy and more – describe how measurements of well-being can be used effectively to assess the progress of nations. The reports review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.

The scores are based on answers to the main life evaluation question asked in the poll. This question, known as the Cantril ladder, asks respondents to think of a ladder with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0 and to rate their own current lives on that scale. The scores are from nationally representative samples for 2017 and use the Gallup weights to make the estimates representative. The columns following the happiness score estimate the extent to which each of six factors – economic production, social support, life expectancy, freedom, absence of corruption, and generosity – contribute to making life evaluations higher in each country than they are in Dystopia, a hypothetical country that has values equal to the world’s lowest national averages for each of the six factors. They have no impact on the total score reported for each country, but they do explain why some countries rank higher than others.

Quality of life index, link: https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/indices_explained.jsp

Happiness store, link: https://www.kaggle.com/unsdsn/world-happiness/home

Uzbekistan UZ: UHC Service Coverage Index data was reported at 73.000 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 72.000 % for 2015. Uzbekistan UZ: UHC Service Coverage Index data is updated yearly, averaging 72.500 % from Dec 2015 (Median) to 2017, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 73.000 % in 2017 and a record low of 72.000 % in 2015. Uzbekistan UZ: UHC Service Coverage Index data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Uzbekistan – Table UZ.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Coverage index for essential health services (based on tracer interventions that include reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases and service capacity and access). It is presented on a scale of 0 to 100.; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (https://www.who.int/data/gho).; Weighted average;

ObjectivesThe effect of COVID-19 mitigation measures on different oral health care needs is unclear. This study aimed to estimate the effect of COVID-19 mitigation measures on different types of oral health care utilization needs and explore the heterogeneity of such effects in different countries by using real-time Internet search data.MethodsData were obtained from Google Trends and other public databases. The monthly relative search volume (RSV) of the search topics “toothache,” “gingivitis,” “dentures,” “orthodontics,” and “mouth ulcer” from January 2004 to June 2021 was collected for analysis. The RSV value of each topics before and after COVID-19 was the primary outcome, which was estimated by regression discontinuity analysis (RD). The effect bandwidth time after the COVID-19 outbreak was estimated by the data-driven optimal mean square error bandwidth method. Effect heterogeneity of COVID-19 on dental care was also evaluated in different dental care categories and in countries with different human development index (HDI) rankings, dentist densities, and population age structures.ResultsA total of 17,850 monthly RSV from 17 countries were used for analysis. The RD results indicated that advanced dental care was significantly decreased (OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.47–0.85) after the COVID-19 outbreak, while emergency dental care toothache was significantly increased (OR: 1.54, 95% CI: 0.99–2.37) 4 months after the COVID-19 outbreak. Compared to the countries with low HDI and low dentist density, the effect was much more evident in countries with high HDI and high dentist density.ConclusionsCOVID-19 mitigation measures have different effects on people with various dental care needs worldwide. Dental care services should be defined into essential care and advanced care according to specific socioeconomic status in different countries. Targeted health strategies should be conducted to satisfy different dental care needs in countries.

Cuba CU: UHC Service Coverage Index data was reported at 83.000 % in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 81.000 % for 2015. Cuba CU: UHC Service Coverage Index data is updated yearly, averaging 82.000 % from Dec 2015 (Median) to 2017, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 83.000 % in 2017 and a record low of 81.000 % in 2015. Cuba CU: UHC Service Coverage Index data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Cuba – Table CU.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Coverage index for essential health services (based on tracer interventions that include reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases and service capacity and access). It is presented on a scale of 0 to 100.; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (https://www.who.int/data/gho).; Weighted average;

Kyrgyzstan KG: UHC Service Coverage Index data was reported at 66.000 % in 2015. Kyrgyzstan KG: UHC Service Coverage Index data is updated yearly, averaging 66.000 % from Dec 2015 (Median) to 2015, with 1 observations. Kyrgyzstan KG: UHC Service Coverage Index data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Kyrgyzstan – Table KG.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Coverage index for essential health services (based on tracer interventions that include reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases and service capacity and access). It is presented on a scale of 0 to 100. Values greater than or equal to 80 are presented as 80 as the index does not provide fine resolution at high values.; ; Hogan et al. An index of the coverage of essential health services for monitoring UHC within the SDGs, Lancet Global Health 2017.; Weighted average;

Italy Index: Health Care data was reported at 144,892.258 19Dec2008=20000 in Oct 2018. This records a decrease from the previous number of 155,630.043 19Dec2008=20000 for Sep 2018. Italy Index: Health Care data is updated monthly, averaging 54,292.549 19Dec2008=20000 from Dec 2008 (Median) to Oct 2018, with 119 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 166,682.266 19Dec2008=20000 in Jun 2018 and a record low of 20,500.000 19Dec2008=20000 in Jan 2009. Italy Index: Health Care data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Italian Stock Exchange. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Italy – Table IT.Z001: Stock Exchange Index.

In the health index 2023, Singapore ranked first with a score of ****, followed by Japan and South Korea. Afghanistan had a health index score of **** that year. The health index measures the extent to which people are healthy and have access to the necessary services to maintain good health, including health outcomes, health systems, illness and risk factors, and mortality rates.

United States Index: Standard & Poors: S&P Global 1200 Health Care data was reported at 3,475.640 31Dec1997=1000 in Nov 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 3,296.380 31Dec1997=1000 for Oct 2018. United States Index: Standard & Poors: S&P Global 1200 Health Care data is updated monthly, averaging 1,542.750 31Dec1997=1000 from Dec 2001 (Median) to Nov 2018, with 204 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3,524.620 31Dec1997=1000 in Sep 2018 and a record low of 1,025.828 31Dec1997=1000 in Feb 2009. United States Index: Standard & Poors: S&P Global 1200 Health Care data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Standard & Poor's. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.Z017: Standard & Poors: Global and European Indexes.

In 2024, ** percent of adults worldwide agreed that many people in their country could not afford good healthcare. Individuals in Brazil were most likely to agree with this statement "Many people in my country cannot afford good healthcare.", while the least share of individuals agreed in Sweden. The results generally reflect the wealth of a nation, with people from wealthier countries tending to agree that good healthcare is affordable. The biggest exception being the U.S. where over ********* of U.S. respondents agreed that good health care is unaffordable to many despite being one of the richest country in the world. This statistic shows the percentage of adults in select countries worldwide who agreed that many people in their country could not afford good healthcare as of 2024.