Environmental and Social Conditions and the Health Status of the Ethnic Minorities in the Hungarian Part of the Danube–Kris–Mures–Tisa Euroregion

Mária Kómár, Borbála Belec, Edit Paulik, and László Nagymajtényi

Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Corresponding author: Mária Kómár
    Department of Public Health
    University of Szeged Faculty of Medicine
    Dóm tér 10
    H-6720 Szeged, Hungary
    Telephone: +36-62-545-119
    Fax number: +36-62-545-120
    E-mail: komarm@puhe.szote.u-szeged.hu

CEJOEM 2003, Vol.9. No.4.: 235–242

Key words:
Health survey, environment, health behavior

Abstract:
The health status of a population is largely determined by the mutually interrelated factors of the environment as well as the social and financial conditions and lifestyle including health-related behaviour. In the Danube–Kris–Mures–Tisa Euroregion, people belonging to the same ethnics live on both sides of the frontier. In South-East Hungary, Croatian, German, Romanian, and Serbian populations can be found. Belonging to one of these minorities means a different cultural background potentially influencing the attitude to health and health-related factors like lifestyle, career, and environment. It is also of interest what the health of people, being the majority in one country and a minority in the other, under the largely similar natural conditions is like. In our study, members of the above-mentioned ethnics (100-120 of each) were interviewed by means of an anonymous questionnaire containing questions about health, work environment, living and social conditions. The results were compared to those of the Hungarian ethnic majority. In each population, circulatory diseases were the first and musculoskeletal disorders the second main cause of chronic ill health. Smoking was the most and least abundant among the Romanian and the German population, respectively; while excessive alcohol consumption prevailed among the Serbians and Hungarians. Cooking with vegetable oil was preferred by the Romanian, and with animal fat, by the Serbian ethnic minority. Results of this kind indicated significant differences between health-determining factors in the populations studied. Consequently, efforts of health promotion need to be tailored to the target population.

Received: 19 September 2003
Accepted: 1 December 2003

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