Doctors per 1,000 inhabitants in Mexico 2006-2020

In Mexico, the number of practicing doctors amounted to around 2.41 professionals per thousand inhabitants in 2020, a decrease compared to the figures reported a year earlier when there were about 2.44 practicing physicians per every thousand people. In 2020, the total number of physicians totaled approximately 307.5 thousand professionals, up by more than 97 thousand practitioners in the country since 2007.

Density of doctors worldwide

In a global comparison, Mexico ranks in an middle category for density of medical doctors per 1,000 population, similar to Japan and Qatar. Among the countries in the upper bracket for highest density of doctors are Cuba, Georgia, Lithuania, and Greece. Along with Mexico’s moderate density of doctors, over 28 percent of the population was considered vulnerable due to lack of access to health services in Mexico as of 2020, down from around 29 percent a decade earlier.

Health care in Mexico

Nearly 33 million people in Mexico held public health insurance through Seguro Popular in 2020, which was replaced by a new institution at the beginning of that year, called INSABI (Instituto Nacional de Salud para el Bienestar). However, the IMSS (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social) led by a large margin as the largest provider of health insurance in the North American country. Meanwhile, less than one percent of Mexicans were enrolled for private health coverage as of 2018.