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Supply of High Quality Care
This is a simple measure of how many licensed physicians and accredited hospitals are available in a country per capita. Note that this supply can vary widely depending on where you are in a country – healthcare resources may be more plentiful in urban areas, rather than more remote destinations.
Responsiveness of Emergency Services
This measure rates a country’s emergency services based on how reliably they generally respond to a call for help. It takes into account primarily government-operated ambulance services, if available, and also captures the reliability of the communications infrastructure.
Pharmacy Reliability
Although quality and service within a country may differ from pharmacy to pharmacy, the country-level reliability is based on the quality and maintenance of medicines available in pharmacies and the training and knowledge requirements for pharmacists.
Water Quality
According to the WHO (World Health Organization), diarrhea is the disease most closely linked to the local environment, affected most by the quality of drinking water and sanitation. While this rating does take into account the availability of water and quality of the sanitation system, it does not reflect the availability of bottled water.
Air Quality
Both indoor and outdoor air quality are considered in this rating. Indoor air pollution occurs widely in developing countries where cooking and/or heating rely on burning wood, charcoal or other resources. Outdoor air pollution is more prevalent in cities and industrial areas of rapidly developing and developed countries.
Exposure to Infectious Disease
Although an individual’s behavior, vaccination status and immune system are major factors in assessing their personal risk for infection, this metric focuses on the risk of infectious disease at a country level, taking into account the prevalence of disease and vectors.
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