Paradoxes of Health Transition in Europe’s Poorest Country: Albania 1950-90
Author(s)
Gjonca, Arjan; Wilson, Chris; Falkingham, Jane
Abstract
Scholars interested in the ways in which good health, as measured by levels of mortality, can be achieved at low cost have paid considerable attention to countries and regions in Asia and Latin America where this has been accomplished. Until recently the analogous experience of a poor developing country in Europe, Albania, was impossible to study, because of the totalitarian and isolationist policies of the communist regime that ruled the country from 1944 to 1990. The authors chart the main trends in mortality transition in Albania, examine the underlying and proximate causes of the morality decline, and consider the wider relevance of the results. They conclude with a discussion of post-communist developments in the country and their influenced mortality change.
