Swiss give themselves clean bill of health

A survey encompassing 35 European countries shows that 77.7% of Swiss residents over the age of 16 rated their health situation as good or very good.

The Alpine nation ranked fourth – after Ireland, Cyprus and Macedonia – among those who categorised their health status as “good or very good” in the Eurostat survey released on Thursday. The European Union average is 67.5%.

Lithuanians, Latvians and Portuguese are at the bottom of the list: only 43 to 48% of them feel good or very good. On average in the EU, men (70.1%) generally feel healthier than women (65.2%).

Another positive for Switzerland is that only 4.5% of residents surveyed rated their health to be bad or very bad, the lowest among the countries surveyed.

According to the World health Organization, the average Swiss life expectancy is 83.4 years. Swiss men live the longest with an expectancy of 81.3 years while Swiss women come in at sixth place globally at 85.3 years.