ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the trends in health status in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and former Soviet Union (FSU). With population ageing, physical and cognitive impairment is an increasingly important global health problem. Mortality and morbidity from most chronic diseases show pronounced social variations both between and within countries. A substantial gap in mortality between Western Europe and the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe has developed in the past three decades. For men in FSU, healthy life expectancy at birth was 16 years lower than in males in Western Europe and healthy life expectancy at age 60 showed a similar pattern but with smaller absolute differences. While cognition has been assessed in a number of studies in Western Europe and North America, the information on cognitive functions in the non-patient population in CEE/FSU is even more limited than that on physical functioning.
