Health in Eastern Europe

To assess trends in health in Eastern Europe, age-standardised mortality rates since 1950 in four Eastern European countries (German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) were compared with those in two Western European countries (Federal Republic of Germany and England and Wales). In the Eastern European countries mortality rates had increased or were virtually unchanged since the mid-1960s, especially in middle aged and elderly men. Death rates in males in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary in the mid to late 1980s were as high as those in the two Western European countries in the early 1950s. There was a shorter time lag for females. This poor health record in Eastern Europe will need to be addressed by the policy makers in the new democracies.