Trends in mortality in Europe: What might be expected in future?

Mariana Mourgova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

The divergence in mortality between Western and Eastern European countries in recent decades was and is still of interest for many researchers. The observed differences between these countries, in general, are not only in the levels of mortality, but in causes of death, as well. After the WWII mortality has declined in all European countries but more rapidly in Eastern Europe, where it was higher. After the mid of 1960s, however, this improvement continued only in Western Europe when in Eastern Europe it has delayed. Economic and social transition since the end of 1980s and early 1990s in the latter countries even accelerated that process and led to increase in mortality but it was followed by new improvement in most of them during the last decade. Recently developed methodology by F. Girosi and G. King for forecasting age-sex-country-cause-specific mortality is applied to examine future trends in selected Eastern and Western European countries.