National public health strategy announced in Hungary

National public health strategy in Hungary

The document also defines “intervention points and monitoring”, Péter Takács said, noting that the strategy heavily leans towards prevention and catching diseases early.

Takács said the government’s goal is to increase the number of years Hungarians spend in health.

“Hungary seriously lags behind in this respect if compared with the EU average,” he said, adding that “it impacts the country’s economic performance.”

The state secretary cited studies that suggested that each year spent on health increased a country’s GDP by 0.4 percent.

He said the interior ministry, overseeing the health portfolio, assigned the task of drafting the strategy to the umbrella organisation Hungarian Association of Public Health Training and Research Institutes (NKE).

“Already, results show that our cooperation has extended colon cancer screenings to cover the entire population in the 50-70 age group across the country,” Takács added.

Róza Adany, NKE’s founder and honorary president, said that the population’s aging was a phenomenon prevalent in Hungarian society as well. She noted that “since 1981 the number of deaths outperforms the number of births,” adding that “2018 was a unique year from the point of view that never before had the proportion of people aged 65 or older exceeded the proportion of those aged five or younger”.

She promoted the approach that it was of key importance “to let older but active people appear in the labour market who can contribute to the country’s development”.

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