PHSSR Saudi Arabia 2025

6.1 Population health and public awareness for health system sustainability Prior to 2016, the Saudi health system focused on improving treatment and access to and quality of healthcare. Treating illnesses alone is not sustainable and inevitably leads to suboptimal population health and staggering health costs. Recognising this, the government started to address population health and to reduce expenditure by transitioning to a value-based health service model. This shift has signi ficantly intensi fied investment in preventative programmes and improvements in health. As a result, progress has been made in a number of population health indicators over the past five years, such as an increase in the number of Saudis reporting being physically active from 20% in 2019 to 30% in 2021 (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 2020). Key health indicators Although there have been signi ficant improvements to Saudi Arabia’s health service in recent years, numerous public health threats persist, including the prevalence of chronic health conditions and unhealthy behaviours. Therefore, targeted prevention programmes are required as soon as possible to achieve the desired health goals of Vision 2030 . The HSTP focuses on improving population health indicators, such as disease prevalence, mortality rates and life expectancy. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made signi ficant strides in enhancing the quality of their health services, as evidenced by the substantial improvements in key population health indicators. Life expectancy has increased from 45.9 years in 1960 to 76.9 years in 2021– an increase of 31 years over six decades – and is now comparable with that in the United States as shown in Figure 11 (Bah S, 2018). This upward trajectory re flects improvements in living conditions and in quality and access to healthcare in the country during this period. 66 Sustainability and Resilience in the Saudi Arabian Health System The Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience Over the period from 2010 to 2018, the infant mortality rate showed a reduction from 6.19 to 6.0 deaths per thousand live births, a decline of 64.5%. The most recent maternal mortality ratio also shows a signi ficant improvement at 11.9 per hundred thousand live births when compared with 14 deaths per hundred thousand live births in 2010, a reduction of 15%. This re flects Saudi Arabia's commitment to infant and maternal healthcare and overall healthcare standards. The mortality rate Figure 11: Life expectancy in Saudi Arabia and USA, 1960 –2020 Source: World Bank (Databank).