The health of Europeans

More than three-quarters (76%) of Europeans consider that they are in good health. Approximately one in five citizens believes  that  he  or  she  is  in  very  good  health (21%) or has a more neutral position (19%) as regards his or her health.  Only 5% of respondents described their health as bad (5%) or very bad (1%).

In the European Union, respondents in a majority of the new Member States tend to be more pessimistic about their health in general. The percentages vary considerably from one Member State to another: a small majority of Latvians and Lithuanians (52%) consider that their health is good or very good while the corresponding percentage is close to or higher than 85% in Denmark (84%) and Ireland (87%).There are similar differences if only the results of the “very good” replies are taken into consideration: the Irish (43%) and Danish (44%) are again among those who consider that their health in general is  very good. This time, however, they are  joined by citizens in Greece (46%) and Cyprus (40%). Citizens of the Baltic countries (from 5 to 11% of respondents from those countries consider themselves to be in very good health) while Hungarian citizens are more “negative” (11%) about their health in general. Among the candidate and accession countries, Turkey is the only one where the levels are very close to the EU average. On the other hand, those of the other countries are below the EU average.

An analysis of the replies by socio-demographic variables reveals that men are more optimistic about their health. Fairly logically, age is a discriminating variable; while 89% of young people (aged between 15 and 24) consider that their health is good, only 59% of people aged 55 and over make the same positive diagnosis of their health. The heaviest respondents and those who consider that they are overweight are more  likely  to  view  their  health  negatively.  This  suggests  that  such  people  are aware of the negative health effects of a high body weight.