Post-communist transition and health in Europe

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7479.1355

BMJ 2004;329:1355-1356 (11 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7479.1355

Editorial

Post-communist transition and health in Europe

Has yielded important insights, which need to be better documented

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

In July 2005 the BMJ will devote a theme issue to the medicalproblems of hundreds of millions of people in post-communistcountries geographically located in central, eastern, and southeasternEurope. Communism came to the Soviet Union after the first worldwar and to the rest of now transitional Europe after the secondworld war. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the beginningof the end of communism, and the former communist countriesentered a phase of transition to democracies and market economies.

The arguably common path that these countries started out onbranched in many different directions, partly because they allstarted from different bases. Today the countries in transitionare politically and economically as heterogeneous as is thehealth status of their populations.¹ Although for some the firststage of transition ended with their accession to the EuropeanUnion in May this year, others . . . [Full text of this article]

Martin McKee, professor of European public health

European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7H (martin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk)

Kristina Fister, Roger Robinson editorial registrar

BMJ

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