New Zealanders' long lives and educational attainment have put the country in the top 10 most developed countries in the world, according to a United Nations measure.
The Human Development Index, which brings together health, educational and income indicators, is pitched as a broader measure of wellbeing than conventional measures of national development, such as income alone and the rate of economic growth.
High health and education scores lifted New Zealand's index value, which saw it punch above the OECD index score.
Professor Tony Blakely, an Otago University researcher, said the return on what we spend in the health sector was partly reflected in our life expectancy. But that was only half the story as we ranked outside the top 10 in that individual measure.
Instead, New Zealand's health spending - which was much less than that of the United States, which spent the equivalent of 17 per cent of its GDP in 2010 on health - performed well because of the efficiency of drug buying agency Pharmac and the primary health and health promotion sectors.
