Our World
in Data
Data

Hospital beds per 1,000 people

What you should know about this indicator

Hospital beds include inpatient beds available in public, private, general, and specialized hospitals and rehabilitation centers. In most cases beds for both acute and chronic care are included.

Limitations and exceptions: Depending on the source and means of monitoring, data may not be exactly comparable across countries. For more information, see the original source.

Statistical concept and methodology: Health systems - the combined arrangements of institutions and actions whose primary purpose is to promote, restore, or maintain health (World Health Organization, World Health Report 2000) - are increasingly being recognized as key to combating disease and improving the health status of populations. The World Bank's Healthy Development: Strategy for Health, Nutrition, and Population Results emphasizes the need to strengthen health systems, which are weak in many countries, in order to increase the effectiveness of programs aimed at reducing specific diseases and further reduce morbidity and mortality. To evaluate health systems, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that key components - such as financing, service delivery, workforce, governance, and information - be monitored using several key indicators. The data are a subset of the key indicators. Monitoring health systems allows the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of different health system models to be compared. Health system data also help identify weaknesses and strengths and areas that need investment, such as additional health facilities, better health information systems, or better trained human resources.

Availability and use of health services, such as hospital beds per 1,000 people, reflect both demand- and supply-side factors. In the absence of a consistent definition this is a crude indicator of the extent of physical, financial, and other barriers to health care.

Notes from original source: Depending on the source and means of monitoring, data may not be exactly comparable across countries. See listed source for country-specific details.

Source
Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 20, 2024
Next expected update
May 2025
Date range
1960–2019
Unit
per 1,000 people

Related research and writing

Emerging COVID-19 success story: South Korea learned the lessons of MERS

Guest Authors

Emerging COVID-19 Success Story: South Korea Learned the Lessons of MERS

Guest Authors

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates.

Retrieved on
May 20, 2024
Retrieved from
https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0037712/World-Development-Indicators
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI).

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Hospital beds per 1,000 people”. Our World in Data (2024). Data adapted from Data compiled from multiple sources by World Bank. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hospital-beds-per-1000-people [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Multiple sources compiled by World Bank (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Hospital beds per 1,000 people” [dataset]. Data compiled from multiple sources by World Bank, “World Development Indicators” [original data]. Retrieved November 26, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hospital-beds-per-1000-people