Public Health and Sustainable Development: Assessing SDG3 across the Countries of the European Union

Objective: To classify EU countries by their degree of implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 3 – good health and well-being; to identify the changes which have occurred in two years, 2016 and 2020. Research Design & Methods: The study used methods of multivariate statistical analysis with a particular emphasis on cluster analysis methods, including Ward’s method and k-means. Using Ward’s hierarchical clustering, a preliminary determination of the number of EU country groups was made using a dendrogram of linkages, integration distances, and classification steps. The Calinski-Harabasz index was used for the final selection of the optimal number of classes. Findings: In both 2016 and 2020, two classes of the EU countries emerged, differing significantly in terms of their SDG3 implementation levels. The class presenting a higher level of public health and well-being included the Member States of the EU prior to its expansion eastward. Greece (a country with longer term EU membership), Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia (of the EU’s new enlargement) were among the other class. Implications / Recommendations: The changes that occurred in SDG3 implementation in EU countries from 2016 to 2020 are positive. Most of the indicators we tracked changed for the better, indicating that the actions taken by EU Member State governments effectively improve public health and well-being. Future efforts should focus on improving preventable mortality, reducing obesity, and extending healthy life. Contribution: The article is intended to broaden the knowledge on sustainable development implementation levels for good health and well-being and to identify the changes which occurred in this area between 2016 and 2020, the two years examined.