Health and environment in Czechoslovakia

The study summarizes basic information on environmental conditions and health status of the Czechoslovak population. It analyzes the relationships between health and environmental conditions, and Appendix brings the comprehensive results of relevant studies performed in Czechoslovakia. The analytic results suggest the quality of Czechoslovak ecology as unsatisfactory, which in some localities, e.g. North Bohemia coal fields, Prague, Ostrava, is next to critical, with heavy impact on the population's health. The Czechoslovak citizens are more prone to falling ill, die sooner than their peers in the majority of European and non-European countries. In addition to the specific effects of individual factors and life style also immunity, reproduction cycle, metabolic processes etc. become involved in the health-living conditions relationships. All these influences are responsible for high rates of morbidity due to the so-called civilization diseases. Inevitably, the only possible solution is to protect effectively human healthy by protecting his living conditions, i.e. environment and life style.