Country Health Profiles and Synthesis Report 2025

The 29Country Health Profiles and Synthesis Report2025 were officially released at the end of2025, providing a comprehensive overview of current trends and challenges in health systems in EU countries, Iceland and Norway. These publications form a central part of the State of Health in the EU cycle - a joint initiative of the European Commission, the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

With regard to Portugal's Country Profile , and specifically with regard toalcohol, we would like to point out, without prejudice to a more careful reading, thatPortugal has one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption in the European Union and that in 2022 consumption reached 11.9 litres of pure alcohol per person, around 21% above the EU average, the highest figure recorded in that year; around 20% of the population aged between 15 and 74 consumes alcohol daily or almost daily; 3.5 per cent have alcohol abuse or dependence; the impact on the health system is significant, with tens of thousands of alcohol-related hospital admissions every year; there is a lack of warning labels and that there is low taxation on alcohol, especially wine, when compared to tobacco, and that Portugal is far from the European target of reducing consumption by 10 per cent.

Also according to this document, life expectancy in Portugal has risen to 82.7 years in 2024, about a year above the EU average, but healthy life expectancy at 65 is below the EU average. Portugal's spending on health is 10 per cent of GDP, but per capita spending is a fifth lower than the EU average and public sources cover only 62 per cent of health spending. Portugal's strong preventive policies and quality primary health care have reduced avoidable and treatable mortality by 17% compared to the EU average, keeping avoidable hospitalisations among the lowest in the EU.

The consumption of alcohol, tobacco and other addictive behavioursare among the main preventable factors of death and disease in Portugal, contributing to around 1/5 of all deaths, although Portugal's overall figures are lower than the EU average.