Health in Hungary, the HUNGARIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
Demographic Data
The population has been declining gradually since the beginning of the 1980s, as a result of a decreasing birth rate and higher mortality rate.
The ageing of the population, which is a general phenomenon in Europe, can also be observed in Hungary.
During the last twenty years, the distribution of population according to family status has changed significantly in Hungary. There has been a gradual decline in the number of those living in marriage and, parallel with this trend, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of unmarried men and women. The number of divorces has also increased.
Health status of the population
The health status of the Hungarian population has been extremely unfavourable for many years. Regarding certain diseases and causes of death, Hungary is in a negatively outstanding position in international statistics. The average life expectancy at birth is much lower than in the Member States of the European Union, and the high mortality of middle-aged men is especially unfavourable.
The life expectancy of infants in Hungary has improved similarly to the improvement observed in the developed Western countries, although there was a slight delay.
Mortality indicators improved only for children and young adults, while at the age of 30, or even more between 35 and 64 years of age there was significant deterioration in the male population for approximately three decades.
Life expectancy has never been as good among the population aged less than 35 years than now. Life expectancy at birth increased from 69.3 years in 1990 to 72.4 years in 2002.
In the morbidity pattern, the diseases of the circulatory system have very high share. Hypertension is almost an endemic disease in Hungary, ischemic heart disease is the dominant factor of mortality in Hungary. Diabetes affects 4.6% of the population. The most frequent acute respiratory disease is lung asthma, which affects all age groups and two thirds of the cases are caused by allergy.
Tumours represent a principal category of disease for public health purposes. Tumours are significantly more frequent among women aged 19-54 (breast cancer, tumours of the colon, the rectum and the lung) while over the age of 55 tumours are more frequent in men (lung cancer)
Among the diseases of the digestive system, one of the most frequent diseases is stomach ulcer and duodenal ulcer.
Diseases of the locomotor system are the most frequent causes of inability to work. The most frequently observed locomotor diseases are spinal diseases arthrosis, low back pain and osteoporosis.
Regarding mental diseases, the data cannot reflect the actual morbidity patterns, because the statistics only contain patients who seek out specialists of psychiatry institutions with their complains and who have been receiving continuing care.
Among the diseases registered in psychiatry mood disorders and affective disorders occur in the highest number. According to Hungarian data, more than 15% of the population has severe depression conditions at least once in their lives.
Epidemiological situation
In Hungary the epidemiological situation is in total favourable, vaccination coverage exceeds 99%.
Nutrition habits overweight and obesity, psychical activity
The nutrition habits of the Hungarian population is characterised by excessive intakes of energy, fat, animal fat, cholesterol, added sugar and salt, and insufficient intake of dietary fibres insufficient consumption of vegetables and fruits, as well as consumption of less than the desirable amounts of whole-meal cereal.
Obesity is the number one public health problem in Hungary too, affecting more than 1.5 million people, with further 2.7 million people being overweight.
One of the reasons for the unfavourable health status of the population is the lack of physical exercise. The physical activity of the population in leisure time is not more than 10 minutes a day.
Smoking, alcohol consumption and drug use
Smoking is the most important risk factor.
At the end of the 1990s, the mortality in the age group of 15-64 years related to smoking was nearly 2.5 times higher than the European Union average, and twice as high as the average of all European countries. In Europe, mortality caused by lung cancer is the highest in Hungary, and the figure keeps increasing.
Alcoholism is a serious health problem in Hungary. In 2000, mortality due to excessive alcohol consumption was more than three times as high as the European Union average for males, and two and a half times higher in the case of females.
Abstinence is decreasing in the case of both sexes, although more significantly among women. Another negative phenomenon is that the problem of drinking is more and more typical of young people.
According to 2002 data, around 12.700 drug addicts have been treated in health institutes since 1999. Among the illegal drugs, the consumption of opiates has been the highest all the time and it is still increasing. The number of cannabis (marihuana) users increased from 3% to 11% between 1995 and 1999. Cocaine consumption was low representing only 1.7% of the treated patients. The consumption of hallucinogens was even lower.
During the last years the intensity of consumption increases. The dominant age of the first attempts dropped from 16 years to 15 years. The changes of the column and intensity of consumption were accompanied by a change in the structure of substances: marihuana was various synthetic party drugs have become more and more popular in youth.
