Mortality trends in the Baltic countries since the 1950s: Permanence or changes in the cause-of death pattern

France Meslé, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Véronique Hertrich, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Jacques Vallin, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

After a long period of unfavourable trends in mortality, progress has resumed in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while life expectancy is still stagnating or even decreasing in the main countries of the former USSR. The situation is less clear for the Baltic countries, which were part of the former USSR but have recently joined the European Union. Thanks to a collaborative project gathering researchers from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania Russia, and France, it is possible to perform a comparative analysis of trends in causes of death in the three Baltic countries since the mid-1950s, relying on homogenous series of deaths by cause. The analysis highlights the similarity of some trends as well as some features specific to each country. The paper shows how the three Baltic States, after a convergence of their cause-of-death pattern under the Soviet rule, are now experiencing much more diversified situations