The 19 countries with the world’s best healthcare systems

The Legatum Institute, a London-based research institute, released its 11th annual global Prosperity Index in November, a huge survey that ranks the most prosperous countries in the world.

The organisation compares over 100 variables to come up with its list, splitting those variables into nine subindexes. One of the big components of the ranking is how healthy a country’s people are.

Health is measured by three key components by the Legatum Institute: a country’s basic mental and physical health, health infrastructure, and the availability of preventative care.

The countries that have the best scores in the Prosperity Index, and therefore rank as the world’s healthiest, are generally big, developed economies with large amounts of resources.

While Britain just about makes the top of the list, the United States misses out, ranking just 30th overall in the world for the standard of its healthcare services.