Health of Canadians

Life expectancy and the conditions that shape it

How long Canadians live, and the behaviours and conditions that shape it: life expectancy, its recent decline, and population-health risk factors, for Canada and 16 OECD peers.

For what the system spends and the capacity behind it (beds, doctors, imaging, and wait times), see The Health-Care System.

Where Canada stands

A scorecard of where Canada ranks among the peer group’s 17 economies on each measure (latest available year). Dots are ordered by rank, so further right is more favourable for Canada (lower-is-better measures are flipped accordingly). Canada is maroon, key comparators in colour; hover a dot for its value and rank.

Life expectancy at birth

Life expectancy at birth: the average number of years a newborn could expect to live if current mortality rates held. It is the most widely used summary measure of a population’s health.

Canada, the long view

Canada’s life expectancy at birth has risen significantly over the last century. In 1921 life expectancy was only about 57 years. Canadians today live much longer. The largest gains came through the middle of the twentieth century, as infant and infectious-disease mortality fell sharply. Progress since then has been slower but steady, interrupted by a dip in the early 2020s.

Latest life expectancy: ranked

The recent decline

For most of the post-war era, life expectancy rose almost every year. That changed in 2020: Canada’s fell from 82.2 years in 2019 to 81.1 in 2022, pushed down by COVID-19 and the drug-toxicity crisis. This was the first sustained decline in decades. By 2024 it had recovered to its pre-pandemic level. The dip was deeper in the United States, shown here for comparison.

Population health & risk factors

Life expectancy is influenced by a variety of factors examined in this section. The data come from the World Bank’s compilation of World Health Organization, UN, and International Diabetes Federation data, so all 17 countries are reported on a common basis. By default each chart shows Canada, the named comparators, and the peer average. Use the legend to add the other peers. Tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis are covered in depth on the Substance Use page.

Suicide

Deaths by suicide per 100,000 population. Canada sits in the lower part of the peer group at roughly 9 per 100,000. This is below South Korea but above Mediterranean peers such as Italy and Israel.

Who is most affected, by age and sex

The single national rate hides a stark and consistent pattern: in every age group, suicide is far more common among men than women, about three times as often overall. The rate among men climbs through midlife and stays high into older age. Women’s rates are lower and flatter across all ages.

Overweight

Share of adults with a body-mass index (BMI) of 25 or higher, the conventional threshold used to classify overweight and obesity. At a population level, higher BMI is associated with increased risk of several chronic diseases, although BMI does not directly measure body fat or determine an individual’s health. The share has risen in nearly every peer country over the past three decades. In Canada, it is about 60%. That is lower than in the United States, higher than in most European peers shown, and substantially higher than in Japan and South Korea.

Diabetes

Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases and a major contributor to heart disease, kidney failure and other serious complications. This shows estimated prevalence among adults aged 20–79. The International Diabetes Federation publishes these at intervals rather than annually, so this is the latest available estimate, shown as a ranked comparison rather than a trend.

Maternal mortality

Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births (modelled estimates on a consistent international basis). Most peers cluster at very low ratios. Canada, at roughly 12, sits near the high end of the group; only the United States is higher.

Childhood vaccination

The share of children aged 12–23 months immunized against measles (first dose). Because measles is very contagious, 95% coverage (the dashed line) is widely used as a threshold for stopping community spread. Canada’s coverage sits below this threshold, below most European peers, and coverage dipped across many countries around the pandemic.

Download data

System spending, capacity and access data are on The Health-Care System.