Health Equality in CEE Countries

By: Anastasiia Andreeva
Oct 11, 2021


The Graph of the Week shows changes in health equality in Central and Eastern European (CCE) countries from 2010 to 2020. This score reflects the extent to which a country guarantees high-quality basic healthcare to all citizens. Red dots indicate that the scores for Hungary, Ukraine, Slovenia, and Poland have substantially decreased in the last decade. 

The latest V-Dem Democracy report highlighted Poland and Hungary as among the top 10 major autocratizers around the world in 2010-2020. Ukraine and Slovenia have also experienced a substantial decline in their levels of democracy in this decade. Empirical evidence collated by V-Dem Institute’s Case for Democracy program demonstrates that autocratization corresponds to lower estimated life expectancy, less effective health service coverage, and higher levels of individual out-of-pocket spending. While the positive relationship between political liberalization and human welfare becomes apparent only in the long run, autocratizing countries tend to also exhibit reductions in health equality in the short term, as the graph shows.

To learn more about the Case for Democracy program, visit v-dem.net.