Mortality in Central and Eastern Europe

While, during several decades, unfavourable trends in mortality were quite similar in Central Europe and in the former USSR, in the most recent years, these two parts of Europe are diverging. In most Central European countries, life expectancy is now increasing mainly thanks to a decline in cardiovascular mortality. Conversely, cardiovascular mortality is still increasing in Russia and Ukraine and its negative impact is reinforced by a worsening of violent deaths and infectious mortality. The situation of Baltic countries is still uncertain but it is not impossible that these countries soon resume with sustainable progress in life expectancy.