section_path: Demographics/Health care
section_name: Health care
paragraph_text: Health care
  
  Saudi Arabia has a national health care system in which the government provides free health care services through government agencies. Saudi Arabia has been ranked among the 26 best countries in providing high quality healthcare. The Ministry of Health is the major government agency entrusted with the provision of preventive, curative, and rehabilitative health care. The ministry's origins can be traced to 1925, when several regional health departments were established, with the first in Makkah. The various healthcare institutions were merged to become a ministerial body in 1950. The Health Ministry created a friendly competition between each of the districts and between different medical services and hospitals. This idea resulted in the creation of the "Ada'a" project launched in 2016. The new system is a nationwide performance indicator, for services and hospitals. Waiting times and other major measurements improved dramatically across the kingdom.
  
  A new strategy has been developed by the ministry, known as Diet and Physical Activity Strategy or DPAS for short, to address bad lifestyle choices. The ministry advised that there should be a tax increase on unhealthy food, drink and cigarettes. This additional tax could be used to improve healthcare offerings. The tax was implemented in 2017. As part of the same strategy, calorie labels were added in 2019 to some food and drink products. Ingredients were also listed as an aim to reduce obesity and inform citizens with health issues, to manage their diet. As part of the ongoing focus on tackling obesity, women-only gyms were allowed to open in 2017. Sports offered in each of these gyms include bodybuilding, running and swimming to maintain higher standards of health.
  
  Smoking in all age groups is widespread. In 2009 the lowest median percentage of smokers was university students (~13.5%) while the highest was elderly people (~25%). The study also found the median percentage of male smokers to be much higher than that of females (~26.5% for males, ~9% for females). Before 2010, Saudi Arabia had no policies banning or restricting smoking.
  
  The MOH has been awarded "Healthy City" certificates by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the cities of Unayzah and Riyadh Al Khabra as 4th and 5th Healthy Cities in Saudi Arabia. The WHO had earlier classified three Saudi Arabian cities, Ad Diriyah, Jalajil, and Al-Jamoom as "Healthy city", as part of the WHO Healthy Cities Programme. Recently Al-Baha has also been classified as a healthy city to join the list of global healthy cities approved by the World Health Organization.
  
  In May 2019, the then Saudi Minister of Health Tawfiq bin Fawzan AlRabiah received a global award on behalf of the Kingdom for combatting smoking through social awareness, treatment, and application of regulations. The award was presented as part of the 72nd session of the World Health Assembly, held in Geneva in May 2019. After becoming one of the first nations to ratify the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, it plans to reduce tobacco use from 12.7% in 2017, to 5% in 2030.
  
  Saudi Arabia has a life expectancy of 74.99 years (73.79 for males and 76.61 for females) according to the latest data for the year 2018 from the World Bank. Infant mortality in 2019 was 5.7 per 1 000. In 2016, 69.7% of the adult population was overweight and 35.5% was obese.