“Today’s society is going through a period of relatively fundamental changes in economic, social, cultural and demographic trends. They change the lifestyle and leisure time, but also the structure of employment, reproductive behavior and the proportions of age groups, but also affect the quality of health,” said Dana Hübelová from the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies MENDELU, who participates in the research project with colleagues from Masaryk University.
Health scientists see inequalities as unfair differences resulting from inequalities in a number of determinants of different natures, such as social, economic, environmental and others. Ideally, everyone should have the same opportunity to reach their full health potential. The results of the analyzes carried out so far for 2018 and 2019 show that territorial health inequalities exist in the Czech Republic. They are evident in the Karlovy Vary, Ústí nad Labem and Moravian-Silesian regions, but also in the peripheral districts of the South Moravian, Olomouc and South Bohemian regions.
“It is in the districts of these regions that there is most often, for example, an above-average unemployment rate and an above-average share of people receiving various forms of social support, a high proportion of people with lower education and below-average health care resources, etc. These facts are reflected in lower life expectancy in births, specifically it is up to 5 years for men and 4.3 years for women,” said Hübelová.
At the same time, the districts of Děčín, Most, Chomutov, Teplice, Karviná, Bruntál and Ostrava-město show negative mortality values. It is not only the overall mortality rate, but also the mortality from individual diseases, such as diseases of the circulatory system, malignant neoplasms and diseases of the digestive system, etc. In these districts there is also more often lower life satisfaction or a higher proportion of people with health problems.
The scientific project, which is financed by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (for the period 04/2020 to 12/2021 with a total amount of CZK 3,250,270), aims to analyze the entire complex of quantities at the level of individual districts. The researchers selected over a hundred indicators, which they divided into eight areas. These include, for example, employment, education, demographic and settlement structure, crime, selected lifestyle factors and more. The results of the research will be made available to the public. Thanks to this, they will serve to compensate for differences between regions and can also improve health statistics for the Czech population.
Contact for more information: PhDr. Dana Hübelová, Ph.D., Institute of Social Studies (FRRMS), mail: dana.hubelova@mendelu.cz; tel .: 734 509 405