There is an urgent need to develop and launch a national public health program to improve the country’s economic competitiveness, according to a study presented at the University of Debrecen (DE) on Monday.
An online press conference was held before the closing event of the project Increasing the Competitiveness of the Hungarian Economy by Identifying the Target Groups and Content of Public Health Interventions Improving the Health Status of the Population, presenting the main results of the research.
Medical professor Róza Ádány reminded at the event that the project, supported by the National Office for Research, Development and Innovation with HUF 1.464 billion between 2016 and 2021, was implemented in cooperation with the three faculties of DE (general medicine, public health and economics).
In addition to cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases play a key role in the background of the extremely unfavorable mortality rates of the Hungarian population in international comparison. Because there is significant overlap in the risk factors for these diseases, the research in the six working groups focused on exploring genetic and environmental factors and characterizing their weight, the professor leading the research explained.
Róza Ádány emphasized that the situation with regard to early mortality in the case of cancer and cardiovascular diseases is dramatic in North-Eastern Hungary, in the regions of Northern Hungary and the Northern Great Plain. In the Visegrád countries – Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary – according to the mortality rate of cancer, “there is no region with a less favorable situation than we are,” but only in one region of Poland is the situation as bad in Hungary as in Hungary, findings of Ádány Róza.
The rate of obesity, smoking and alcohol consumption is also worrying for the Roma and young non-Roma populations studied in the region, he added, emphasizing that “the risk of non-communicable diseases is increasing in the Hungarian population”. In this connection, he emphasized that abdominal obesity was rising dramatically: the adult population and the Roma population were included in this category, as was the number of people with high blood pressure and the frequency of pre-diabetes conditions.
Research has clearly highlighted the shortcomings of preventive care: those affected do not make adequate use of prevention, for example, 30 percent of the population has hidden (unknown) high blood pressure, and three-quarters of those treated are not properly controlled, the specialist explained, noting: the results of the research call for the launch of a national public health program as soon as possible.
Róza Ádány reported that the results of the research carried out in the project were summarized in more than a hundred international and almost fifty Hungarian-language publications, and 34 participating young researchers obtained doctoral degrees in the program.
Details of the comprehensive research will be presented at a two-day English-language online conference on Monday and Tuesday at the University of Debrecen.
debreceninap.hu
