Philippine Health, 1960–2024
Life expectancy is up 10.8 years since 1960 and infant deaths are down by two thirds. Two things went the other way, and they are the ones worth the page: tuberculosis, and how much of a hospital bill a household pays itself.
Almost every Philippine health indicator improved for sixty years. The two that did not are tuberculosis and the share of the bill households pay themselves — and they are related.
- TB incidence is 625 per 100,000 in 2024, higher than the 590 of 2000. It is the worst of 5 ASEAN economies compared here, at 97 for the best.
- 44.4% of all health spending is paid directly by households at the point of care — also the highest in the group. Total health spending is only 5.1% of GDP.
- Measles immunisation is 80%, down 92 percentage points from its own peak. Coverage below about 95% is where measles starts circulating again.
- The wins are real and large: life expectancy from 59.2 to 69.9, infant mortality from 62.3 to 21.7 per 1,000.
Sixty Years Of Improvement
Life expectancy and child mortality, the two indicators that summarise most of what a health system does. Both moved a long way, and most of the movement was early.
Life expectancy now
Women 73.0, men 67.0.
In 1960
A gain of 10.8 years, most of it before 1990.
Infant mortality
Per 1,000 live births, down from 62.3 in 1960. Under-five mortality is 26.5.
The One That Went Backwards
Tuberculosis is curable, and the Philippines has more of it now than at the start of the century. This is the single clearest failure in the dataset and it does not appear in any summary that leads with life expectancy.
TB now
Cases per 100,000 people in 2024.
In 2000
The rate went UP by 35 over the period.
Against the region
The Philippine rate is 6.5 times the best in this ASEAN group (97 per 100,000). Worst of 5.
Who Pays
Health spending is low and the share of it borne directly by patients is high. Out-of-pocket spending is the mechanism by which illness turns into poverty, which is why it belongs next to the TB number rather than in a separate finance section.
Out of pocket
Of all health spending, paid at the point of care. Highest of 5.
Total health spending
Low by any comparison. A small pot, and a large share of it out of pocket.
Maternal mortality
Deaths per 100,000 live births. Improved substantially, and still well above where the spending peers sit.
Immunisation Is Slipping
Vaccination coverage rose for decades and has fallen back. Measles needs roughly 95% coverage to stop circulating; below that it returns, and it returns first among the youngest.
Measles coverage
Down 12 points from its own peak of 92%.
DPT coverage
The other routine childhood series, moving the same way.
Stunting under five
Roughly one child in four. Stunting is largely irreversible after age two, so this number is a forecast as much as a measurement.
What This Page Does Not Cover
The version this replaces charted HIV counts, measles outbreak curves, non-communicable disease breakdowns, hospital beds and regional health indicators. Those come from DOH's Field Health Services Information System and the HIV/AIDS registry.
DOH is closed to scripts
doh.gov.ph sits behind a managed challenge that automated requests do not pass. Its registries are the proper source for Philippine disease counts and none of them are fetchable here.
So no HIV, no outbreak curves
The previous page carried a 2019 HIV figure with no source behind it. The epidemic is real and rising; this page stays quiet about its size rather than quoting a number it cannot check.
Nothing sub-national
Every figure here is national. Regional health indicators need PSA or DOH, and both are unreachable, so no regional claim appears.
Method
One fetcher, three CSVs, from the shared World Bank helper in data/_lib/worldbank.py.
Each figure at its own latest year
The page this replaces mixed 2016, 2018 and 2019 figures into one summary. Here every number is the most recent the indicator actually has, and the year is printed beside it.
Gaps stay gaps
A country-year with no survey is null and is never forward-filled. Stunting has 13 points across 34 years; drawing it as an annual line would invent the years between.
Ordering checks
checks.sql asserts female life expectancy exceeds male, that combined sits between them, and that under-five mortality is never below infant mortality — each of which catches a transposed column pair that would otherwise look entirely plausible.
A standing warning
A check fires while TB incidence remains above its 2000 level. It is the page's central claim, so if it ever reverses the framing gets revisited rather than quietly outliving the data.
Like-for-like comparison
The ASEAN table uses the latest year every country in it has a value for (2023), not each country's own latest print, which would compare different years and call the difference a gap.
Verification
Ten assertions in checks.sql, and every figure above bound to a query in facts.sql.
Key Findings & Summary
- Life expectancy rose from 59.2 to 69.9 years and infant mortality fell from 62.3 to 21.7 per 1,000. The long trend is genuinely good.
- Tuberculosis is the exception: 625 per 100,000 in 2024 against 590 in 2000, and 1st worst of 5 ASEAN economies.
- Households pay 44.4% of all health spending directly, the highest share in the group, out of a total health budget of just 5.1% of GDP.
- Measles immunisation has fallen to 80% from a peak of 92%, below the level at which measles stops circulating.
- No figure here is sub-national and none covers HIV or outbreak counts. DOH's registries are the right source and are not reachable by script; the previous version of this page quoted them anyway.
Sources & Citations
Every figure on this page traces to one of these, through a CSV in
data/ph-health/. Each is checked against its source query on every
build.
World Bank World Development IndicatorsSecondary
Life expectancy, mortality, immunisation, TB incidence and health spending, 1960-2024 — Compiled from WHO and UN IGME; DOH's own registries are not reachable by script
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Prefer the plain-English version?
I wrote a companion post — “Two Health Numbers That Went The Wrong Way” — in simple, everyday words.