Health-status of the Slovak Republic population in comparison with countries of Central Europe and European Union.
The Central Europe (CE) countries are probably to become members of the European Union (EU) in a few years' time. This overview compares the health trends of Slovak Republic (SK) population in comparison with Central Europe countries (Czech Republic (CZ), Poland (PL) and Hungary (H)) and with the weighed mean of EU. The life expectancy of males and females at birth is significantly higher in EU, and this difference is not caused by substantially different infant mortality rate. Total premature mortality is significantly higher in CE and the differences in mortality due to cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of this gap. Cancer mortality in males, but not in females is the second most important difference. Breast cancer mortality rates in SK, CZ and PL are even lower than the EU average. Male mortality due to external causes is the third most important difference between EU and CE. The differences in mortality due to infectious diseases and due to diseases of respiratory system are not very great. After the political changes in 1989/90, the decline in cardiovascular mortality, mortality due to external causes and due to respiratory system diseases were observed in CE. Unfortunately, this is not true with cancer mortality. The rank of health status of four CE countries is as follows: the CZ is in the best situation, followed by SK and PL. There is an evident gap between these 3 countries and Hungary. The differences between EU and CE at the end of the 20th century are still relatively great, but in CZ, SK and PL there is the tendency to overcome this gap in the first 10-15 years of the next century. (Tab. 2, Fig. 6, Ref. 18.)
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D002423:Cause of Death; D018153:Czech Republic; D005062:European Union; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D011044:Poland; D018154:Slovakia