Health in Malaysia

Malaysia is classified by The World Bank as upper middle income country and is attempting to achieve high-income status by 2020 and to move further up the value-added production chain by attracting investments in high technology, knowledge-based industries and services. Malaysia's HDI value for 2015 was recorded at 0.789 and HDI rank no 59 out of 188 countries and territories on the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index.^[1] In 2016, the population of Malaysia is 31 million; Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2014) is 1040; Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2014) was 4.2 ^[2] Gross national income (GNI) per capita (2011 PPP$) was recorded at 24,620 ^[1]

The Human Rights Measurement Initiative^[3] finds that Malaysia is fulfilling 74.9% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to health based on its level of income.^[4] When looking at the right to health with respect to children, Malaysia achieves 96.8% of what is expected based on its current income.^[4] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 86.4% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.^[4] Malaysia falls into the "very bad" category when evaluating the right to reproductive health because the nation is fulfilling only 41.6% of what the nation is expected to achieve based on the resources (income) it has available.^[4]