Britain still great – but distinctly overweight, global quality of life index shows.
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor 6:15AM BST 03 Apr 2014
Britain is still great – but distinctly overweight – global quality of life index shows UK outranks the US, France, Japan and Italy in rankings of world’s most advanced countries but held back on health measures by high obesity rates.
Grumbling might be our national pastime but, according to a major new international ranking, people in Britain enjoy one of the highest qualities of life any of the world’s leading countries.
The UK scores ahead of Japan, the US, France and Italy and only a fraction lower than Germany on the “Social Progress Index”, a new international measure designed to rival GDP.
But the measure also shows Britain’s status as one of the fattest countries in the world is holding it back in health rankings.
Overall the UK emerges as the 13th out of 132 countries around the world in the international barometer of success, which combines statistics on everything from health and housing to educational standards and water quality.
The index, compiled by a team of economists led by Prof Michael Porter, of Harvard Business School in the US, is designed as an alternative to traditional measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is based on purely economic standards.
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More than 50 separate sets of figures from bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), measuring quality of life and success, are converted into a single score. Although a pilot version was published last year using data from 50 countries, it is the first time a ranking has been produced covering most of the world.
COUNTRY RANK SCORE PPP GDP PER CAPITAChad 132 32.6 1,870
Central African Republic 131 34.17 943
Burundi 130 37.33 483
Guinea 129 37.41 921
Sudan 128 38.45 1,894
Angola 127 39.93 5,262
Niger 126 40.1 674
Yemen 125 40.23 2,145
Pakistan 124 42.4 2,402
Nigeria 123 42.65 2,335
Togo 122 42.8 906
Mauritania 121 43.11 2,244
Liberia 120 44.02 560
Madagascar 119 44.28 843
Iraq 118 44.84 3,659
Mozambique 117 45.23 882
Cameroon 116 45.51 2,025
Djibouti 115 45.95 2,051
Tanzania 114 46.06 1,380
Mali 113 46.85 1,047
Burkina Faso 112 47.33 1,304
Uganda 111 47.75 1,165
Congo, Republic of 110 47.99 3,815
Malawi 109 48.79 660
Swaziland 108 48.87 4,522
Lesotho 107 48.94 1,692
Benin 106 49.11 1,364
Rwanda 105 49.46 1,167
Zambia 104 49.88 1,475
Kenya 103 50.2 1,522
India 102 50.24 3,341
Nepal 101 51.58 1,276
Cambodia 100 51.89 2,150
Bangladesh 99 52.04 1,622
Laos 98 52.41 2,522
Senegal 97 53.52 1,671
Ghana 96 55.96 1,764
Tajikistan 95 56.05 1,920
Iran 94 56.65 10,405
Kyrgyzstan 93 57.08 2,077
Uzbekistan 92 57.34 3,095
Morocco 91 58.01 4,573
China 90 58.67 7,958
Mongolia 89 58.97 4,708
Indonesia 88 58.98 4,272
Algeria 87 59.13 7,400
Kazakhstan 86 59.47 11,973
Sri Lanka 85 59.71 5,384
Egypt 84 59.97 5,795
Lebanon 83 60.05 12,592
Guyana 82 60.06 2,930
Moldova 81 60.12 2,951
Russia 80 60.79 15,177
Cuba 79 61.07 n/a
Namibia 78 61.19 6,520
Honduras 77 61.28 3,657
Guatemala 76 61.37 4,397
Jordan 75 61.92 5,289
Nicaragua 74 62.33 3,510
Azerbaijan 73 62.44 8,871
Paraguay 72 62.65 5,290
Bolivia 71 62.9 4,552
South Africa 69 62.96 9,860
Tunisia 70 62.96 8,442
Dominican Republic 68 63.03 8,794
Venezuela 67 63.78 11,623
Georgia 66 63.94 5,086
Saudi Arabia 65 64.38 27,346
Turkey 64 64.62 13,737
El Salvador 63 64.7 6,125
Ukraine 62 64.91 6,394
Bosnia and Herzegovina 61 64.99 7,356
Armenia 60 65.03 7,374
Thailand 59 65.14 8,463
Belarus 58 65.2 13,427
Botswana 57 65.6 14,109
Philippines 56 65.86 3,801
Peru 55 66.29 9,431
Mexico 54 66.41 13,067
Montenegro 53 66.8 10,602
Colombia 52 67.24 9,143
Romania 51 67.72 11,444
Ecuador 50 68.15 8,443
Macedonia 49 68.33 9,323
Albania 48 69.13 8,123
Trinidad and Tobago 47 69.88 23,260
Brazil 46 69.97 10,264
Malaysia 45 70 14,822
Bulgaria 44 70.24 12,178
Jamaica 43 70.39 7,083
Argentina 42 70.59 11,658
Serbia 41 70.61 9,683
Kuwait 40 70.66 40,102
Israel 39 71.4 27,296
Panama 38 72.58 14,320
United Arab Emirates 37 72.92 36,267
Croatia 36 73.31 16,005
Greece 35 73.43 20,922
Mauritius 34 73.68 13,056
Lithuania 33 73.76 18,799
Hungary 32 73.87 17,033
Latvia 31 73.91 15,826
Chile 30 76.3 15,848
Italy 29 76.93 26,310
Korea, Republic of 28 77.18 27,991
Poland 27 77.44 18,304
Uruguay 26 77.51 13,821
Costa Rica 25 77.75 11,156
Slovakia 24 78.93 21,175
Czech Republic 23 80.41 23,815
Portugal 22 80.49 21,032
Spain 21 80.77 26,395
France 20 81.11 29,819
Estonia 19 81.28 18,927
Slovenia 18 81.65 24,483
Belgium 17 82.63 32,639
United States 16 82.77 45,336
Ireland 15 84.05 36,723
Japan 14 84.21 31,425
United Kingdom 13 84.56 32,671
Germany 12 84.61 34,819
Austria 11 85.11 36,200
Australia 10 86.1 35,669
Denmark 9 86.55 32,363
Finland 8 86.91 31,610
Canada 7 86.95 35,936
Sweden 6 87.08 34,945
Norway 5 87.12 47,547
Netherlands 4 87.37 36,438
Iceland 3 88.07 33,880
Switzerland 2 88.19 39,293
New Zealand 1 88.24 25,857
New Zealand tops the table, ranked the best place in the world on measures as diverse as individual rights and sanitation, just ahead of Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. Several of the top 10 spots are taken by Scandinavian countries while Canada, at seventh, was the highest-ranking member of the G8 in the table.
Britain comes in two places above its nearest neighbour, Ireland, in the rankings. But Germany inches ahead of the UK by a fraction of a single point, significantly scoring more highly in the “health and wellbeing” category.
While Britain is 13th overall, it plunges to 37th for health – one of the lowest rankings for comparable western countries – primarily because of its obesity levels. With around a quarter of the population in the UK officially classed as obese, the country ranks 109th out of 132 countries on the measure.
Mexico languishes as the most obese country in the western world, just ahead of the US. Meanwhile Japan, renowned for its people’s longevity, is the healthiest country in the world, with obesity levels less than a fifth of those in the UK.
Italy, which also routinely scores highly in longevity studies, comes second for health and well being.
Italy 2 / 132
Australia 5 / 132
Netherlands 10 / 132
Ireland 11 / 132
Spain 12 / 132
Canada 13 / 132
France 14 / 132
Austria 17 / 132
Germany 19 / 132
Belgium 34 / 132
New Zealand 35 / 132
United Kingdom 37 / 132
Portugal 48 / 132
Mexico 54 / 132
United States 70 / 132
Russia 130 / 132
Britain beats the world for education, with more top ranked universities than any other country. It has the lowest levels of human trafficking, and malnutrition in the study and shares top spot for a series of measures of “personal rights” which includes areas such as freedom of speech and assembly as well as having world beating school enrolment figures.
Britain also stakes a claim to being the most connected country in the world, with the highest number of mobile phone subscriptions per hundred people.
But notably the UK falls to 21st place for “press freedom” – lower than other comparable countries. And despite having some of the lowest murder rates in the world, Britain scores less well than its rivals for “personal safety”, largely because of a higher-than-average score for fear of crime.
Michael Green, executive director of the Social Progress Imperative, which publishes the index, said that the UK’s overall ranking almost exactly matched its position in GDP tables. “It is more socially advanced than either Belgium, France, Ireland or Spain but loses out to all the Nordic countries, and to Germany by a single ranking,” he said.
“The UK is let down by its poor score on ‘health and wellness’ and the findings also illustrate ongoing problems with ‘personal safety’.” The study notes that despite the very similar overall scores for the UK and Germany there were “striking differences” – with Britain, like the US, scoring highly for individualism but lower on measures relating to the social safety net.
Obesity, see how Britain compares with other obese countries and see %age population who are obese. (You will need to go onto the Daily Telegraph Website to see this chart but it is worth looking at, just click on the link below).
Which are the healthiest countries in the world? and why?
Where in the world would you be happiest to work as a doctor or other healthcare professional? and why?
What are the differences between the Social Progress Index (SPI) and the GDP of a country?
Using clear concise, clinical English, how would you extract and communicate a summary of the above information to a clinical colleague?
As a qualified health professional, how would you help patients who are obese, locally, nationally and globally?
What do you understand about; “Prevention is better than Cure” and how could this saying be applied to healthcare in;
Your homeland? The hospital where you work? The UK? Europe? and Globally?
What do you know about the World Health Organisation?
Click the link below to read the article in the Daily Telegraph