Understanding the toll of premature death among men in eastern Europe

doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7320.1051

BMJ 2001;323:1051-1055 ( 3 November )

Education and debate

Understanding the toll of premature death among men in eastern Europe

Martin McKee, professor of European public health ^a, Vladimir Shkolnikov, head of the laboratory of demographic data ^b.

^a European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, ^b Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Doberaner Str 114, 18057 Rostock, Germany

Correspondence to: M McKee Martin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The policies pursued by the Soviet Union and its satellites in central and eastern Europe have had profound implications forhealth. ¹ ² By 1990 the probability of people dying beforethe age of 65 in the Soviet Union was twice that for western Europe,and for the communist countries of central and eastern Europeit was 70% higher compared with western Europe.³

Men were especially susceptible to dying prematurely. Although men in all industrialised countries live shorter lives thanwomen, in the Soviet Union the gap between the sexes was especiallylarge. In 1990 the life expectancy of men living in the SovietUnion was only 64 years $---$ nine years less than in western Europe.Soviet women could expect to live to 74 years $---$ 10 years longerthan men and only six years less than women in western Europe.The disadvantage in life expectancy relative to western Europewas less for countries of central and eastern . . . [Full text of this article]

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