Fascinating health news

How do you encourage over 600 million Europeans to live healthier lives?

One way is to round up Europe's top health reporters and communicators to look at Europe's major health news. Then have them discuss what campaigns and communications work best in impacting people and their ways. From anti-smoking campaigns to preventing water-related diseases, some campaigns and communications work — others don't. Then encourage them to spread the news, good and bad.

That is exactly what the World Health Organization's Health Communications Network did. Journalists participated in the event, along with spokespeople from governmental health ministries and international organisations. Representatives of environmental organisations also attended, to close the gap between environmental health and human health. Now for the news, some good, some bad, some shocking ...

Life, death and disease
• For the first time ever, polio was eradicated for 12 consecutive months in Europe, due largely to a major successful vaccination campaign from 1995-1997. The last case was reported in Turkey on November 26, 1998.

• Tuberculosis has re-emerged in Europe with epidemic proportions, especially in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS). Main causes include recession, poverty, social upheaval, malnutrition, overcrowded prisons, homelessness and HIV.

• Both AIDS and HIV are sharply increasing in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, mainly through drug use. Malaria is reappearing in certain southern European areas such as Turkey and Bulgaria.

• Global climate change and increases in temperature could affect the spread of infectious diseases and allergies. Economic globalisation also affects health, as diseases and viruses are more easily transportable.

• Seventy percent of premature deaths and disabilities are due to eco/socio/environmental reasons. Mental health is a very serious growing problem, stress being a main factor — in many cases as a result of political, social and economic transition in CEE/NIS countries.

• Alcohol is now the major cause of premature death among Russian men (33 percent) - partially because vodka was priced so low in the mid-1990s (often cheaper than food).

• Life expectancy among European males is declining and life expectancy in Denmark has fallen to among the lowest in the EU. Danes smoke too much and they recently failed to pass a law prohibiting smoking in Danish hospitals.

• There are 8-9 million abortions per year in Europe. In Russia, there are twice as many abortions as new births.

• Many children contracted thyroid cancer after the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. A new iodine drug now blocks the uptake of radiation in children.

Corporate communications
• "Hazard merchants" are companies that communicate positive messages about unhealthy things, like tobacco companies and their public relations (PR) support.

• International PR companies (often owned by advertising companies) are getting wealthier and more powerful. They control a substantial amount of global communications. In the US, estimates say there are two corporate PR workers for every one professional journalist now, so it's more difficult to get objective information these days.

• Some 11 media conglomerates control 70 percent of the information we receive. None of their representatives attended the WHO conference.

• PR companies are often hired for massive PR campaigns for new medicines. For example, Ogilvy PR promoted Pfizer Pharmaceuticals' new allergy medicine, Zytec, through a series of stories connecting Zytec to the increased allergy effects of El Nino as it influences weather patterns. Viewers of the campaign were estimated at about 100 million.

• Corporations are working more with governmental bodies in joint health ventures (e.g. Procter & Gamble and UNICEF).

• People want more health information so that they can choose the best options.

• Most people get more information from watching Baywatch on TV than from CNN news. Health promoters should therefore try to get their health messages more into popular media, as do the hazard merchants.

Other news
• Most new medicines on the global market from 1980-1997 came from the US. Second was Japan, which produced 25 percent of what the US produced.

• The public is more open to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in medicines than in foods.

• There is a 67 percent chance of another nuclear accident happening this decade. It might result from a power cut-off that could affect reactor-cooling activities and lead to a nuclear meltdown. Furthermore, radiation may be spreading in oceanic areas near sunken Russian radioactive waste.

• The Aral Sea is disappearing despite millions of dollars in foreign aid that was spent mainly on expenses for foreign "experts."

• The US tobacco industry was recently sued billions of dollars. One US prosecutor noted that half of all smokers will die from smoking. Some 35 million pages of documents were collected for the suit against the industry - now public information, available on the web.

The Health Info Source
World Health Organization - Europe's Health for All Statistical Database provides excellent, easy and fast access to health statistics for European countries and allows comparative analysis in a user-friendly, graphical format. It is used by the WHO for the regular analysis and assessment of the health situation in Europe. Over 500 indicators are included in the database, covering the health status of populations (mortality, morbidity, disability), determinants (life styles, environment, health care) and background demographic and socio-economic indicators. The database is available free of charge to users and can be downloaded to your computer free from the Internet.