Defining health indicators of Greece and Germany

Health care constitutes a basic social right for all citizens and its protection must be a basic priority for the states. For this reason the investigation of the social and economic development of a country is based, among other things, on the study of the level of health of its population. The level of health is shaped by many factors related to health indicators. The purpose of this review study is at the first level to present the basic health indicators of Greece and Germany in recent decades. At the second level, the aim is to present convergences and divergences of these indicators from the perspective of the economic crisis. The methodology followed was based on the bibliographical research and study of reviews and research studies related to the health indicators of the two countries. The studies were carried out by international databases Medline, Pub med, Cinahl, Springer link, Cambridge Journal Online, Oxford Journal, Science Direct Google Scholar, the Greek database Iatrotek, and the database on health indicators from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington. The comparison of health indicators does not show significant variations in life expectancy, indicators of childhood (under 5 years) and infant (less than 1 year) mortality between Greece and Germany. However, there was a significant difference both in total health expenditure, as well as in health expenditure per person, with Greece presenting very low costs compared to Germany. This is due to the fact that the Greek financial policies of austerity applied at the time of the economic crisis, have negatively affected the quality of health care services, as well as the overall health level of Greek population. Some of health indicators of those was studied, such as life expectancy, infant and child mortality, access, and quality of healthcare for the two countries converge. However, there is a particularly significant difference between Greece and Germany, both in total expenditure as well as in health expenditure per person, with Greece presenting very low costs compared to Germany.