Cuba Region
Medium HALE and Life Expectancy
Medium Gap between HALE and Life Expectancy
Final Longevity Progressiveness Ranking: #33
Final Longevity Progressiveness Score: 0.617
Practical Recommendation Summary: Ageing, an increase in obesity and problems with tobacco and alcohol are main causes of death among Cuba's citizens. Cuban government should address to health challenge, which is a huge investment in public health education around smoking, alcohol, diet and exercise. The foundation of Cuban’s preventative health care model that is at primary care level should be in priority.
Practical Recommendations (Full):
● Struggling against the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy does not strengthen the healthcare system. It inevitably leads to higher administrative costs, corruption, poor focus on the quality of healthcare and care delivery itself.
● Resolving the issue with healthcare accessibility. There must be certain facilities and conditions for the medical staff to provide appropriate diagnostics and effective treatment. Investment in the modernisation of healthcare facilities may help to boost healthcare efficiency and improve health outcomes.
● Improve staff engagement in the health care system. Certainly, the government earns from foreign health missions but the entire population in Cuba suffers from bad care delivery and shortage of employees in hospitals. Making physicians tired from overwork is very risky because such a situation can lead to mistakes and bad patients’ outputs.
● Focus on longevity global challenges. The “silver tsunami” is an actual challenge for Cuba. Government initiatives should follow the worldwide movement to improve physical, mental, social well-being for people as they age. The initiative should aim to comprehensively address the challenges and opportunities presented by the ageing of the population.
● Tackle rising obesity. Thus rates of smoking and alcohol consumption are relatively low, the prevalence of overweight among adults is a rising issue. The government should initiate strategies to improve the health of the nation, promote the importance of focusing on socio-demographic factors to ensure delivery of healthy newborns and decrease the burden of behavioural factors such as insufficient physical ability, overweight, alcohol abuse, smoking.
● Plan and implement developmentally appropriate programs in school-aged environments, encourage social media responsibility to maintain social network and develop inclusive society for the elderly.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
● The outstanding decrease in child mortality aged less than 5 years for the past decades from 46 death per 1000 40 years earlier to 7 per 1000 in 2014.
● Cuba has a really well-educated population and a surfeit of doctors. Life expectancy on the island is higher than in the U.S. and Cubans have almost more than three times as many doctors per capita.
● Every physician completes a family medicine residency.
● Developed preventive and primary care.
Weaknesses:
● The age-adjusted death rate for coronary heart diseases is 100.35 per 100,000 of population ranks Cuba #116 in the world and reached 19,504 or 23.02% of total deaths.
● About half of Cubans suffer from obesity
● A national survey revealed that they eat only 3.2 fruits and vegetables per week that is a very low amount.
● Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates.
● The healthcare system is one-tier consistent only of public establishments that bring the lack of flexibility and makes it dependent on government.
Opportunities:
● Regular provision of reforms in Cuba leads to the modernization of polyclinics and training of good staff that cause a significant improvement in healthcare.
● Government is the key player of the healthcare system in Cuba and can observe, plan and regulate the functioning of the healthcare with no limits that bring simply mechanisms and effectiveness with further equal distribution of resources.
● Streamline establishment of different entities such as polyclinics and laboratories that can struggle the epidemic and the viruses.
● Regular provision of the renovation of the equipment.
Threats:
● Epidemics caused by different viruses are among the major causes of death that increase the risk of premature disability.
● 42 per cent of the Cuban population are overweight and it is a risk of CVD for the country.
● Lack of financial resources can be the obstacle to rebuilding a strong healthcare system.
● Past conflict with the USA that brought the increase in medications’ and drugs’ costs up to 30%.
● Stroke is the second risk factor for death and it reached 10.77% of deaths in 2017.
SWOT Conclusions
Strengths Analysis:
● Cuban life expectancies of 79.5 years and infant mortality rates of 4.3 per 1000 live births (2015) compare well with rich nations like the USA (78.7 years and 5.7 per 1, 000 live births).
● Cuba spends 11.1% of GDP on the healthcare that is above the average indicator in the world.
● The patient to doctor ratio has decreased sufficiently for the few past decades and stood for 147 in 2010.
● Cuba could reach the record of 98% full immunization by the age of 2 years, vaccinating children against 13 illnesses; antenatal care for 95% of pregnant women with rates of infant mortality less than 5 per 1000 births; and chronic disease control, including a yearly blood pressure measurements for the entire population.
● By 1999 Cuba could reach the full basic coverage of the population by the functioning of medical teams.
● Smoking and alcohol consumption are below the OECD average.
Weaknesses Analysis:
● Centralized planning brings certain disadvantages to the functioning of the healthcare system because of penalties for physicians in case of bad statistic for the patients’ outcomes, so they usually manipulate the data.
● Great disparities in the rural and urban areas because of the uneven distribution of medical facilities and specialists.
● Poor focus on care delivery: too long waiting periods and short consultations.
● Doctors and specialists are usually overworked because of the great amount of visits (800-1000 per day) and their colleagues are involved in the abroad health missions.
● There are severe problems with the diagnostics and supply of up-to-date equipment and even with an electricity supply that destruct the functioning of hospitals and medical centres
● Prevalence of tobacco use was revealed among the 37% of students and alcohol consumption among 74.1%, students with 3.7% classified as at risk for death.
Medium Gap between HALE and Life Expectancy
Final Longevity Progressiveness Ranking: #33
Final Longevity Progressiveness Score: 0.617
Practical Recommendation Summary: Ageing, an increase in obesity and problems with tobacco and alcohol are main causes of death among Cuba's citizens. Cuban government should address to health challenge, which is a huge investment in public health education around smoking, alcohol, diet and exercise. The foundation of Cuban’s preventative health care model that is at primary care level should be in priority.
Practical Recommendations (Full):
● Struggling against the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy does not strengthen the healthcare system. It inevitably leads to higher administrative costs, corruption, poor focus on the quality of healthcare and care delivery itself.
● Resolving the issue with healthcare accessibility. There must be certain facilities and conditions for the medical staff to provide appropriate diagnostics and effective treatment. Investment in the modernisation of healthcare facilities may help to boost healthcare efficiency and improve health outcomes.
● Improve staff engagement in the health care system. Certainly, the government earns from foreign health missions but the entire population in Cuba suffers from bad care delivery and shortage of employees in hospitals. Making physicians tired from overwork is very risky because such a situation can lead to mistakes and bad patients’ outputs.
● Focus on longevity global challenges. The “silver tsunami” is an actual challenge for Cuba. Government initiatives should follow the worldwide movement to improve physical, mental, social well-being for people as they age. The initiative should aim to comprehensively address the challenges and opportunities presented by the ageing of the population.
● Tackle rising obesity. Thus rates of smoking and alcohol consumption are relatively low, the prevalence of overweight among adults is a rising issue. The government should initiate strategies to improve the health of the nation, promote the importance of focusing on socio-demographic factors to ensure delivery of healthy newborns and decrease the burden of behavioural factors such as insufficient physical ability, overweight, alcohol abuse, smoking.
● Plan and implement developmentally appropriate programs in school-aged environments, encourage social media responsibility to maintain social network and develop inclusive society for the elderly.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
● The outstanding decrease in child mortality aged less than 5 years for the past decades from 46 death per 1000 40 years earlier to 7 per 1000 in 2014.
● Cuba has a really well-educated population and a surfeit of doctors. Life expectancy on the island is higher than in the U.S. and Cubans have almost more than three times as many doctors per capita.
● Every physician completes a family medicine residency.
● Developed preventive and primary care.
Weaknesses:
● The age-adjusted death rate for coronary heart diseases is 100.35 per 100,000 of population ranks Cuba #116 in the world and reached 19,504 or 23.02% of total deaths.
● About half of Cubans suffer from obesity
● A national survey revealed that they eat only 3.2 fruits and vegetables per week that is a very low amount.
● Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates.
● The healthcare system is one-tier consistent only of public establishments that bring the lack of flexibility and makes it dependent on government.
Opportunities:
● Regular provision of reforms in Cuba leads to the modernization of polyclinics and training of good staff that cause a significant improvement in healthcare.
● Government is the key player of the healthcare system in Cuba and can observe, plan and regulate the functioning of the healthcare with no limits that bring simply mechanisms and effectiveness with further equal distribution of resources.
● Streamline establishment of different entities such as polyclinics and laboratories that can struggle the epidemic and the viruses.
● Regular provision of the renovation of the equipment.
Threats:
● Epidemics caused by different viruses are among the major causes of death that increase the risk of premature disability.
● 42 per cent of the Cuban population are overweight and it is a risk of CVD for the country.
● Lack of financial resources can be the obstacle to rebuilding a strong healthcare system.
● Past conflict with the USA that brought the increase in medications’ and drugs’ costs up to 30%.
● Stroke is the second risk factor for death and it reached 10.77% of deaths in 2017.
SWOT Conclusions
Strengths Analysis:
● Cuban life expectancies of 79.5 years and infant mortality rates of 4.3 per 1000 live births (2015) compare well with rich nations like the USA (78.7 years and 5.7 per 1, 000 live births).
● Cuba spends 11.1% of GDP on the healthcare that is above the average indicator in the world.
● The patient to doctor ratio has decreased sufficiently for the few past decades and stood for 147 in 2010.
● Cuba could reach the record of 98% full immunization by the age of 2 years, vaccinating children against 13 illnesses; antenatal care for 95% of pregnant women with rates of infant mortality less than 5 per 1000 births; and chronic disease control, including a yearly blood pressure measurements for the entire population.
● By 1999 Cuba could reach the full basic coverage of the population by the functioning of medical teams.
● Smoking and alcohol consumption are below the OECD average.
Weaknesses Analysis:
● Centralized planning brings certain disadvantages to the functioning of the healthcare system because of penalties for physicians in case of bad statistic for the patients’ outcomes, so they usually manipulate the data.
● Great disparities in the rural and urban areas because of the uneven distribution of medical facilities and specialists.
● Poor focus on care delivery: too long waiting periods and short consultations.
● Doctors and specialists are usually overworked because of the great amount of visits (800-1000 per day) and their colleagues are involved in the abroad health missions.
● There are severe problems with the diagnostics and supply of up-to-date equipment and even with an electricity supply that destruct the functioning of hospitals and medical centres
● Prevalence of tobacco use was revealed among the 37% of students and alcohol consumption among 74.1%, students with 3.7% classified as at risk for death.