The East-West Health Divide in Europe: Growing and Shifting Eastwards

Abstract

Over a four-decade long period, a health gap has opened up between European countries, in particular along the lines of East and West. It is possible to determine that this European health divide is growing larger and, at the same time, shifting eastwards, leaving countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova at an increasing disadvantage in terms of healthcare provision. The author points to the less than well-known story of steady decline in Communist Bloc health care systems at a time when Western healthcare experienced steady if modest improvements. Health inequalities have also been growing more sharply within the populations of the former Communist Bloc countries for the last couple of decades, as different social classes have emerged with different abilities and resources for accessing quality healthcare. This article begins by tracing the origin of this divide to the Soviet era, especially from the mid-sixties as the communist world entered its period of stagnation. It is from this era that rising death rates can be recorded and increasing division from Western Europe becomes clear. Those countries that were previously led by communist regimes today still show larger health inequalities than do countries in Western Europe. Reducing global and European health inequalities so that the chances of a new-born child of living a healthy life are not so dependent on which country and social class he or she is born in, is a truly formidable task, which requires an entirely new way of interpreting human development. Part of this entails identifying those areas, such as alcoholism or smoking that sustain the great divide between East and West and look for viable means to make improvements to them. It can only be hope that the current economic crisis will spur political actors to new methods in improving the health of their citizens and thus improve productivity and solidarity of communities. This, in turn, will also require the solidarity not only of the EU nations but across the world.