INDICATORS

Calculation:
(1) OECD: The indicator is calculated as the total national health expenditure of a country
in a given year divided by the gross domestic product (as defined by the System of National
Accounts, SNA-93 or ESA-95), expressed in percentages. Calculated and presented
separately for total, public and private sectors.
Total expenditure on health is defined by OECD as the sum of expenditure on activities that
– through application of medical, paramedical, and nursing knowledge and technology – has
the goals of: (1) Promoting health and preventing disease; (2) Curing illness and reducing
premature mortality; (3) Caring for persons affected by chronic illness who require nursing
care; (4) Caring for persons with health-related impairments, disability, and handicaps
who require nursing care; (5)Assisting patients to die with dignity; (6) Providing and
administering public health; and (7) Providing and administering health programmes, health
insurance and other funding arrangements.
(2) The EU Social Protection Committee Indicator “Total health care expenditure as a % of
GDP” (HCP12; 2008), defined as “Total, public and private expenditure on health as % of
GDP”. Recommended source is Eurostat, based on system of health accounts (SHA) data.
Notes: Eurostat, OECD and WHO have adopted a common questionnaire to collect
data on health expenditure, according to SHA methodology. A convergence process of
national health accounting towards SHA methodology has been started. Currently, the
WHO issue data on National Health Accounts, which has been design on the basis of SHA
methodological framework but have some differences.
78. CANCER SURVIVAL
Definition: The relative survival rate for cancer is an estimate of the proportion of patients
who survive at least five years after diagnosis, after correction for background mortality.
The 10 cancers to be included are: 1) all cancers combined without non-melanoma
skin (C00–C97), 2) trachea, bronchus or lung (C33–34), 3) breast (C50), 4) colorectal
(C18–C21), 5) prostate (C61) , 6) stomach, 7) melanoma, 8) cervical (C53), 9) leukaemias/
lymphomas, 10) all childhood cancers (0–14).
Calculation: Relative survival rate is calculated as the observed rate of persons diagnosed
with the cancer in question surviving five years after diagnosis (specific by site, sex,
geographical area, period and age), divided by expected survival rate of a group in the general
population with respect to age, sex and calendar period of investigation.
Notes:
Observed survival rate is calculated as number of persons diagnosed with the cancer in
question surviving five years after diagnosis, divided by number of persons diagnosed with
the cancer in question.
The calculation of a survival rate is complicated by the fact that patients may die of a cause
unrelated to cancer, or may still be alive. Problems of observed survival rate are due to the
fact that not all deaths among cancer patients will be due to the primary cancer in question.
Deaths from other causes lower the observed survival rate, and hamper comparison between
groups for which probabilities of death in the general population vary. To avoid this problem
of comparability, relative survival rates are calculated.
In order to have survival data, Cancer Registries have to collect data on incident cases and
follow-up them for a given period from diagnosis.
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