DEVELOPMENT

promote healthy lifestyles among the population, and to
prevent heart disease and injuries, which has ensured
the progress to date; but, at the same time, these are the
reasons that the Estonian population’s health indicators
to continue to lag.
Medicalisation – the increased utilisation of medi cal
assistance and medications – is a phenomenon characteristic
of developed countries, and it is also spreading
in Estonia. This is evidenced by the increased readiness
of the medical system to provide continual medical assistance
for various illnesses, as well as the readiness of the
population to admit that they need help. The quantity
of prescription medications that is being used, which
characterises medicalisation, has doubled during the last
decade in both Estonia and the Nordic countries. The
total number of medication users, as well as the intensity
of the use, has increased, although we cannot conclude
from this that we now have more people who are ill, or
that the illnesses have become more serious. This phenomenon
rather demonstrates that the population’s illness-related
behaviour is becoming consumer behaviour.
Unfortunately, among Estonia’s young people, the
health-promoting factors are decreasing, and the ones
damaging to health are increasing, and this is happening
faster than in the other developed countries.
Among schoolchildren, the number of overweight boys
and girls has suddenly increased during the last decade
and, just as suddenly, the number of children who are
physically active has decreased. This dynamic is typical
not only of Estonia, but also the rest of the developed
countries, and portends a significant increase in illness
and the need for medical care in this generation, in a
few decades.
The Estonian population’s health trends, during
the last decade, allow us to make a very simplified
summary -- the older segment of the Estonian population
is living longer; the middle-aged segment is living
healthier; but among the young, the impact of the
factors that protect one’s health is declining. We can
only hope that the health behaviour of Estonia’s young
people will become more health-sustaining when they
reach the next age group.
References
1. Eurostat Healthy life years statistics. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.
eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Healthy_life years_statistics
2. Health Behaviour of School-aged Children Study. http://www.
hbsc.org/
3. Estonian State Agency of Medicines medication statistics. http://
www.ravimiamet.ee/
4. Nordic Medico-Statistical Committee. http://www.nom-nos.dk
5. Aru J., Rahno J., Rannala H. “Tervena elada jäänud aastad ning
nende arvutamine,” Quarterly newsletter of Statistics Estonia.
2012; 1: 45–50.
6. Salomon J. A., Wang H., Freeman M. K., Vos T., Flaxman A.
D., Lopez A. D., Murray C. J. L. “Healthy life expectancy for
187 countries, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global
Burden Disease Study 2010,” Lancet 2012; 380: 2144–2162.
7. Volmer D., Smirnova L., Henrikson E., Kiivet R. A. “Eesti
inimeste retseptiravimite kasutamise seosed tervise enesehinnangu
ja krooniliste haiguste esinemisega 1996. ja 2006. aasta
Eesti terviseuuringu andmetel,” Eesti Arst 2012; 91(6): 286–293.
8. Aasvee K., Maser M. “Ülevaade Eestis 2001/2002. ja 2005/2006.
õppeaastal toimunud kooliõpilatse tervisekäitumise uuringutest
teiste riikide taustal” Eesti Arst 2009; 88(6):390-401.
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