Avoidable chronic diseases are Europe's deadliest killers, says Eurostat data
According to new figures from 2022 released by the EU's official statistics agency on Monday, the deadliest diseases affecting people under 75 in Europe are not caused by viruses, but by chronic health conditions.
The agency found that 386,710 deaths were from treatable diseases – avoidable through high-quality medical care – and 725,625 deaths were due to preventable chronic diseases.
These include lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and alcohol-related poisoning. Latvia recorded the highest rate of avoidable deaths, followed by Romania and Hungary. Ranking lowest, however, were Sweden, Italy, and Luxembourg.
Since 2010, gaps between western and eastern countries have been growing on tobacco use, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes, the WHO found in a recent report.
These figures come as countries are preparing to debate the topic at the UN General Assembly in New York this September, where they will address targets for reducing noncommunicable diseases by 2030.
The World Health Organization's Europe chief, Hans Kluge, has said the bloc can turn things around and has called for 'bold' prevention policies. A workforce issue? Several unions, including ETUC and EPSU, said the figures reflect a broader problem with the bloc's health workforce, linked to cuts in national and EU-level social spending. According to the OECD, the EU faces a shortage of 1.2 million healthcare workers.
Esther Lynch, general secretary of ETUC said that 'despite the heroic daily efforts of healthcare workers regularly doing overtime to make-up for huge shortages, these figures show again that austerity kills.'
Alessandro Gallina, a policy officer at non-profit European Public Health Alliance, said that the Eurostat figures "underscore a painful truth: prevention remains key to reducing avoidable deaths, yet the EU's health workforce planning still fails to fully embed it."
This also comes as health NGOs – many of which focus on prevention – are concerned about their financial future under the EU's next long-term budget. In June, a few countries, including Belgium, Spain, and Slovenia, called for sustained civil society funding in the MFF.
Frank Vandenbroucke, Belgium's health minister, said NGO funding would be crucial for prevention work "independent of lobbies" like the tobacco or food industries.
(bms, aw)
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