Abstract:

This article compares the efficiency of health systems in selected European countries using two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA), based on data from the EUROSTAT database. In the first step, DEA efficiency scores were calculated for health care systems and, subsequently, the external variables describing lifestyle were used to calculate the truncated regression.

Health care resources (physicians, nurses, hospital beds, financial outlays, life expectancy in health) included in the health care system and the lifestyle factors of the population are: alcohol consumption, smoking, overweight. The root cause of health systems inefficiencies is health behaviours. The main practical significance of this study is that the conclusions drawn from the results can help policy makers to evaluate the performance of health systems as well as contribute to the identification of directions for improvement in the future.