Perceived general health : Percentage of adults with good or very good self-perceived health, by educational status, in the EU-27, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland

Percentage of adults with good or very good self-perceived health, by educational status in Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the EU-27 (source: Eurostat, 2007)

	Pre-primary, primary education or first stage of basic education	Lower secondary or second stage of basic education	Upper secondary education	Post-secondary non-tertiary and tertiary education	Total
Austria	63.2	-	77.4	82.9	73.5
Belgium	58.3	70.2	84.3	87.0	77.2
Bulgaria	38.6	51.2	61.0	62.2	55.1
Cyprus	58.8	89.8	87.2	93.2	80.8
Czech Republic	48.9	57.6	74.7	72.7	61.7
Denmark	-	61.3	75.4	85.6	77.9
Estonia	11.2	30.2	48.0	53.0	41.9
Finland	-	49.0	61.1	71.9	58.9
France	44.5	70.1	77.6	80.2	69.6
Germany	76.8	79.9	90.9	88.6	82.1
Greece	53.2	87.6	91.2	91.4	72.8
Hungary	24.2	42.9	57.6	62.9	45.1
Iceland	54.3	80.8	84.7	91.6	79.9
Ireland	64.4	88.7	94.2	-	87.1
Italy	31.9	69.8	74.3	75.2	61.0
Latvia	33.7	35.4	35.7	43.2	36.7
Lithuania	10.5	20.6	42.7	51.2	46.1
Luxembourg	-	-	-	-	-
Malta	47.3	75.3	84.5	91.2	69.1
Netherlands	65.2	82.3	83.3	85.8	77.7
Norway	78.6	64.0	81.2	89.4	79.9
Poland	31.3	-	50.2	58.4	43.9
Portugal	10.3	47.8	59.3	25.8	28.2
Romania	35.6	67.5	77.1	69.7	67.1
Slovakia	57.0	60.1	71.5	76.6	67.7
Slovenia	16.5	18.7	36.3	41.2	26.6
Spain	52.4	76.1	80.9	84.4	68.3
Sweden	51.2	75.9	74.9	83.5	74.2
Switzerland	86.7	77.5	87.0	91.3	85.8
United Kingdom	56.4	71.3	78.5	83.4	78.1

- : no data available

Remarks

Tables and figures present the sum of percentages of people perceiving their health as good or very good.

Data on self-perceived health was retrieved from the national Health Interview Surveys (HIS round 2004) and based on the answer of respondents (aged 15 and more) to the question 'How is your health in general?’ using the following scale: “very good”, “good”, “fair”, “bad” and “very bad”. The question is standard but the interpretation subject to cultural bias.

The HIS data are collected in different years depending on the country, going from 1996 to 2003. There is no fixed periodicity in these kinds of health surveys. Very few countries have a yearly survey on these topics. A tabular overview is given in HIS 2004 surveys. The national surveys are not all performed in the same period and results are not all at the same time available.

From 2004 in EU-25 Member States and 2005 in the new Member States, the new EU Statistics on Income and Living Condition survey (SILC) will be used.

For the educational level the ISCED-1997 classification was followed by most of the countries:

classification according to highest level completed
respondents still in full time education: classification according to the level they are attaining
specification of the four ISCED 97 levels:

pre-primary and primary (ISCED 0-1)
lower secondary or second stage of basic education (ISCED 2)
upper secondary (ISCED 3)
post secondary and tertiary (ISCED (4-6)