Canada - World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

Health systems in transition Canada 13
Relative to the OECD comparators, Canada’s life expectancy is at the higher
end of the scale even though infant mortality and maternal mortality rates tend
to be worse than those in Australia, France and (especially) Sweden. When
comparing on the basis of health-adjusted life expectancy, Canada’s rate is in
the mid-range of the OECD comparator countries (Table 1.9).
Table 1.9
Health status, Canada and selected countries, latest available year
Canada Australia France Sweden
United
Kingdom
United
States
Life expectancy at birth, 2009 (years) 81 82 81 81 80 79
Infant mortality rate per 100 births, 2010 5 4 3 2 5 7
Perinatal mortality rate per 1 000 births, 2004 a 6 5 7 5 8 7
Maternal mortality rate per 100 000 live births,
2008
HALE (health-adjusted life expectancy) at birth,
2007
Sources: a WHO (2011a); WHO (2007); WHO (2010) for HALE.
12 8 8 5 12 24
73 74 73 74 72 70
As can be seen in Table 1.10, heart disease and cancer (malignant neoplasms)
have alternated as the main cause of death. Among the cancers, lung cancer
is the largest killer in Canada. Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) remains the
most important contributor to death among the cardiovascular diseases, which
includes cerebrovascular stroke, the other major killer in this category (Hu
et al., 2006).