SDG 3 Good health and well-being

SDG 3 focuses on promoting good health and well-being for people of all ages. Everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy the best possible health. This can be achieved by treating diseases and mental health problems, and by preventing premature death. Improving maternal and childcare, preventing and treating addiction, and reducing traffic mortality are important here as well.

• The labour shortage in the health care sector is high compared to other EU countries and continues to increase.
• People in the Netherlands have a relatively healthy lifestyle: obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking are lower than in most other countries.
• Anxiety and depression are rising.
• Waiting lists for outpatient specialist medical care are getting longer.

Dashboard and indicators

Colour codes and notes to the dashboards in the Monitor of Well-being

Resources and opportunities refers to the resources used to maintain and improve the health care system. Spending on health care as a percentage of GDP stood at 10 percent of GDP in 2023. While the general trend is stable, spending as a percentage of GDP has gradually declined over the past 10 years, with the exception of peaks during the coronavirus pandemic (in 2020 and 2021).

The number of hours worked in care is showing consistent growth, increasing the ability to provide care to the average person. In 2023, health and social care services recorded an average of 107.6 hours of work per inhabitant. The number of hours worked in the care sector is high compared to other countries (the Netherlands ranked fourth out of 26 EU countries in 2023).

Nevertheless, care providers are struggling to find staff, as labour shortages are high and continue to increase. The vacancy rate in health and social care is trending upwards. Until 2015, the average number of vacancies per 1,000 jobs was 15. In the following years, this figure almost tripled, reaching 43 vacancies for every 1,000 jobs. The most recent data (from 2023 to 2024), shows that the vacancy rate increased by 2.4 percent. Compared to other EU countries, the vacancy rate in Dutch health and social care is high and rising faster than in most other countries.

Use refers to behaviour that affects people’s health and their use of health care services. Compared to other EU-27 countries, people in the Netherlands are relatively healthy. The proportion of the population that smokes, and that is overweight or obese, as well as alcohol consumption – three key indicators of an unhealthy lifestyle – are lower than in most other countries.

In 2024, about half of the adult population in the Netherlands were overweight (a BMI of 25 or higher), a figure that has been stable for a number of years. Meanwhile, 14.2 percent of children aged 4 to 18 were overweight. Moreover, the proportion of overweight adults has risen from 33 to 50 percent since the 1980s. The proportion of people who are obese (a BMI of 30 or higher) has increased more sharply than the proportion of people who are moderately overweight. In 2024, one in six people (15.6 percent of the population) were severely overweight. On the whole, the Netherlands has a lower obesity rate than most other EU countries, ranking fifth out of 26 EU countries on this indicator in 2019.

Alcohol and tobacco consumption in the Netherlands is lower than in other EU countries. On average, people in the Netherlands consumed 8.5 litres of alcohol in 2022 (for the purposes of this metric, beer, wine and spirits have been converted to litres of pure alcohol). Only Sweden and Finland had a lower average alcohol consumption rate. The percentage of smokers has declined steadily during the 21st century, falling from more than a third of the population aged 15 and over to 17.9 percent in 2024. This includes all types of tobacco products, but not electronic cigarettes. In 2024, 8 percent of young people aged 12 to 18 reported smoking occasionally. Among young adults aged 18 to 25, 24 percent smoked. Smoking electronic cigarettes, also known as vaping, increased sharply between 2021 and 2023. In 2024, 3 percent of people over 12 years old vaped.

By 2024, at least 88.8 percent of children born in 2021 had received the MMR vaccine. Compared to other EU countries, vaccination rates in the Netherlands are low. Deciding to get vaccinated is a personal choice, but there is also a collective interest: when enough people are vaccinated, society is better protected against infectious diseases. The vaccination rate in the Netherlands does not meet the WHO standard of 95 percent, which is the level required to eradicate measles. However, the participation rate recorded by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) is an underestimate of actual participation, and cannot be properly compared with previous years. This is because minors and/or their parents must now give permission for their vaccination data to be shared, which was not the case before 1 January 2022. As a result, no trend has been calculated for this indicator.

Outcomes refers to the physical and mental health of the population in combination with the quality of health care. In 2024, the healthy life expectancy for men was 63.5 years; for women, the figure was 62.0 years. Healthy life expectancy indicates how long after their birth people can expect to remain in good health. This indicator is based on two metrics. Life expectancy at birth is a quantitative metric that indicates how old the average person will become given the mortality figures at that moment. This is combined with the qualitative metric of perceived health in order to calculate the number of years people can expect to live in good health, based on current health data. In the European figures for life expectancy without limitations, the Netherlands was in the middle of the EU ranking for men (16th out of 27) but nearly at the bottom for women (25th out of 27). For two other indicators related to life expectancy, the Netherlands is in the middle of the EU rankings. The number of people who died by suicide was 10.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. For every 1,000 live births, 2.7 babies died during the first 28 days of life (neonatal mortality) in 2023.

In 2024, 4.5 percent of the population (aged 16 and over) faced serious limitations in normal daily activities due to long-term health problems. This percentage is falling, but still represents over 650,000 people. While the share of people with severe long-term disabilities is declining, an increasing proportion of the population is taking diabetes medication. This is an indication of the prevalence of diabetes. The proportion of people using diabetes medication has increased from 3.8 percent in 2006 to 5.0 percent in 2023, which can largely be attributed to population ageing. In addition, more and more people are experiencing feelings of anxiety or depression. In a 2024 survey, 43.7 percent of respondents aged 12 and over reported that they had experienced feelings of anxiety or depression in the previous four weeks.

In 2023, the average length of a hospital stay in the Netherlands was 5.1 days, shorter than in almost all other EU countries. Waiting lists for specialist medical care are getting longer, however. Health care providers and health insurers have agreed on maximum acceptable waiting times for specialist medical care, known as the ‘Treek norms’. In 2024, almost half (49.1 percent) of waiting times for outpatient consultations in specialist medical care exceeded the four-week Treek norm. This was 1.6 percentage points higher than in 2023 and 8 percentage points higher than in 2021, the first year for which waiting times were measured using this method.

Subjective assessment refers to people’s satisfaction both with their own health and with the Dutch health care system. In 2024, 76.6 percent of the Dutch population described their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. This implies that more than four million people regard their health as less than good. Until 2014, at least 80 percent of the population reported good or very good health, after which this figure gradually began to decline. During the coronavirus pandemic (in 2020 and 2021), a remarkably high proportion of the population reported feeling positive about their health. This figure fell again in 2022. The Netherlands has dropped to tenth place in the EU-27 ranking for this indicator.