Health status overview for countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are candidates for accession to the European Union

The study finds that health status in the candidate countries improved generally until the early 1970s, then stagnated. Death rates overall, and those due to the major causes, began to fall in the 1990s, and life expectancy increased. Dramatic economic and social changes throughout the 1990s were associated with low birth rates, net emigration and falling populations, particularly those of working age. Demographic change has increased the proportion of elderly people, though not yet as dramatically as in the European Union (EU).

Many common, western diseases remain more prevalent than in the EU - cardiovascular diseases, cancer in general, and lung cancer in particular. Relatively high rates of smoking, alcohol consumption, and high blood pressure, lack of exercise and a diet high in animal fats and low on fresh fruit and vegetables are direct contributory factors, though the social insecurity of the last decade has been an underlying factor.

Tuberculosis is common, and HIV/AIDS, rare until recently in all but Romania, may now be growing in other candidate countries too. On the other hand, some causes of mortality are currently less common in this group of countries than in the EU, particularly respiratory and many infectious diseases.

Men's health is particularly poor compared both with the EU and with women in the candidate countries. Exceptions are where women are increasingly adopting harmful behaviour, such as smoking, where they are victims of violence, or where they are only now gaining full access to modern family planning services.

Routine measures of maternal and child health are now generally good, with dramatic reductions in maternal and child mortality, and high immunisation coverage rates. Adolescent health is difficult to measure and requires better data collection. Known threats are high teenage pregnancy rates and increasing smoking, alcohol consumption and substance abuse.