Life expectancy
While some of the CIS countries made gains in life expectancy in both the 1980s and 1990s, a number of countries experienced growth only to see these gains eroded in the 1990s. In the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, life expectancy is lower now than it was in 1980. Some countries in eastern Europe also experienced a decrease in the 1990s, although in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia life expectancy continued to increase. For countries of western Europe, life expectancy has continued to increase, and in many countries women can now expect to live over 80 years. Women live longer in all countries but in the east European and CIS countries, the gap between the life expectancy of men and women is wider, and has often increased during the years of transition. The biggest difference is now in the Russian Federation, where women live on average 13.3 years longer than men (Table 6.1 and Figure 6.2). |
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Healthy life
New measures of so-called “healthy life expectancies” show the estimated duration of life that is lived to a reasonable standard of health. On average, people in the region can lose 8-10 years of their life to disability, ill health or other deteriorated health conditions (Table 6.4). While women live longer than men, they also spend more years with poor health or a disability. When looking at the healthy expectancy as a proportion of total life expectancy, it can be seen that men live a higher proportion of their lives in good health than women do (Figure 6.5). |
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Infant and child mortality
Substantial progress has been made over the past decades in reducing mortality rates for infants (under one year olds) and for children under five (child mortality). Many countries have seen infant and child mortality rates almost halved. This promises well for the achievement of one of the Millennium Goals: to reduce by two thirds between 1990 and 2015 the under age five mortality rate. However, significant differences between countries still exist. For example, the Scandinavian countries have some of the lowest rates for infant and child mortality (around 4-5 deaths per 1000 live births). While Turkey has improved since 1990, its infant mortality rate is still high (37 deaths per 1000 live births) (Table 6.6). |
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Causes of death
Circulatory diseases remain the main cause of death for all countries of the ECE, with the exception of France, where the highest number of deaths resulted from other causes, and where the number of deaths from cancer exceeded the number of circulatory disease deaths. Road accident deaths have fallen for both sexes since 1990 in all ECE countries. Men are still much more likely than women to be the victims of road accidents, although the gap is narrowing. Suicide rates have fallen in western Europe, but increased in central and eastern Europe and CIS, especially for men. Male suicide rates are much higher than those for women, in some cases over four times as high (Tables 6.8 and 6.9). |
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AIDS
The west European and North American countries continuously reduce their number of new AIDS cases, although there was a setback in some countries in 2000. It is more difficult to reach conclusions about the development in the central and east European and CIS region. As low reporting rates are common in several of these countries, and as AIDS has started to spread more rapidly in this region during the last few years (for which there are yet no data), the official numbers of new cases reported do not reflect the real situation. AIDS continued to be a concern for all parts of the ECE. Ukraine reported the highest number of AIDS deaths in 2001. The United States, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Spain, France and Italy estimated the highest number of people living with AIDS per 100,000 population (Table 6.11, Figure 6.12). |
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Health personnel
The variation in numbers of doctors, dentists and pharmacists across the ECE region is vast. By the end of the 1990s several countries had over 400 doctors per 100,000 population (Belgium, Greece, Italy, Norway, Belarus, Georgia, Russian Federation) while others had fewer than 150 (Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina) (Table 6.13). |
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Hospital use and expenditure
Stays in acute care hospitals are generally longest in the CIS countries, with many averaging over 12 days. On the contrary, in Finland, Israel, Malta, the United Kingdom and the United States, the average stay is five days or less (Figure 6.14). Health expenditure also shows wide variations, with the United States, Germany and Switzerland reporting expenditures of 10% or more of GDP. However, in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Tajikistan, the health expenditure is only about 1% of GDP (it should be noted, however, that for most of the CIS countries, data are available only on public health expenditures) (Figure 6.15). |
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Dietary habits
People in Austria, Portugal, Greece and Italy enjoyed the highest intake of calories per day in 2000 (over 3660 calories). People in Tajikistan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Croatia, on the other hand, had to make do with less than 2500 calories per day (Figure 6.16). Greeks consumed the greatest amount of fruits and vegetables in 2000 – over 450 kilograms per person (Figure 6.17). |
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Smoking and alcohol consumption
More men smoke than women in all countries, except Sweden. In several CIS and east European countries over half of the men smoke. For women, the highest proportions are found in Hungary and Norway (over 30 percent) (Table 6.18). Alcohol consumption decreased or stayed on more-or-less the same levels in many ECE countries from 1985 to 2000. Two exceptions are Ireland and the Republic of Moldova where there was a gradual increase. The Republic of Moldova, Luxembourg, Portugal and Ireland reported the highest consumption of alcohol per person 15 years and older in 2000 (Table 6.19). As the data are mainly calculated from official statistics on local production, import and export, these figures do not take fully into account the home production. |
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Tables and charts
6.1
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6.2
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6.3
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6.4
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6.5
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6.6
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6.7
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6.8
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6.9
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6.10
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6.11
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6.12
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6.13
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6.14
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6.15
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6.16
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6.17
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6.18
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6.19
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CHAPTER 6
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