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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Finland
Index
By the late 1980s, Finland's health problems were
similar to
those affecting other advanced countries. The most common
causes
of death in Finland were, first, cardiovascular diseases,
followed by neoplasms (malignant and benign), accidents,
poisonings, trauma from external causes (including
suicides),
and, lastly, diseases of the respiratory system (see
table 12,
Appendix A). The mortality rate from cardiovascular
diseases was
among the world's highest for both sexes, but it was
especially
high for middle-aged males. A national diet rich in fats
was seen
by medical specialists as a cause of the prevalence of
coronary
illnesses.
Despite its location on the periphery of Europe,
Finland was
also affected by the spread of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS), but not to a serious degree. As of late
1988,
only 32 cases of AIDS had been reported, and 222 persons
had been
found to be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV),
although health officials believed there might be as many
as 500
HIV-positive cases in all of Finland. Reasons for the
slight
presence of this health problem were the low frequency of
drug
use and prostitution, an aggressive and frank public
education
campaign, and the trust Finns felt for the national health
system, which led them to adopt practices it recommended.
The most striking of all Finnish health problems was
the high
average mortality rate for males once they reached
adulthood,
which contributed to an average longevity in the mid-1980s
of
only 70.1 years compared with 73.6 years for Swedish
males. In
the second half of the 1970s, Finnish males over the age
of
twenty were one-third more likely to die by their
sixty-fifth
birthday than their Swedish neighbors. Cardiovascular
diseases
struck Finnish men twice as often as Swedish men. The
three other
chief causes of death were respiratory illnesses at twice
the
Swedish rate, lung cancer at three times the Swedish rate,
and
accidental or violent death at a frequency 50 percent
higher than
the Swedish figure. Health authorities have attributed the
high
mortality rates of the Finnish male to diet, excessive use
of
tobacco and alcohol, disruption of communities through
migration,
and a tradition of high-risk behavior that is particularly
marked
in working-class men in eastern Finland.
Mortality rates for Finnish women, with the exception
of
women over sixty-five, compared well with those of the
other
Nordic countries. A reason for this discrepancy between
Finnish
and other Nordic older women was the higher Finnish
incidence of
coronary problems, which occur later in women than in men.
In the
mid-1980s, Finnish women lived an average of 78.1 years,
compared
with 79.6 years for Swedish women. Except for coronary
illnesses,
of which Finnish women died 50 percent more often than
their
Swedish counterparts, the other causes of Finnish female
mortality matched those of Sweden. In some cases, cancer
and
respiratory diseases for example, Finnish women had an
even lower
rate of incidence.
National efforts to improve living habits have included
campaigns against smoking, restraints on the consumption
of
alcohol, and better health education in schools. One
program that
has been widely studied by international health officials
was one
implemented in the province of Pohjois-Karjala that aimed
at
reforming dietary habits in a region particularly hard hit
by
coronary illnesses. Finland was also a participant in the
World
Health Organization's program Health for All by the Year
2000 and
was its European reporting nation.
Data as of December 1988
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