The role of health promotion in preventive policy against cardiovascular diseases in Hungary

: The development of public health has been a high priority in recent years in Hungary. In spite of concentrated efforts to establish a more advanced health service, the health status of the population has not improved and trends in mortality and morbidity are still unfavourable. Risk factors from the environment and from health-damaging behaviour are generally accepted as the main causes of cardiac diseases, yet lay people still think that progress in therapy can compensate for the effects of an unhealthy, overstrained and self-exploiting way of life. We might have well-educated experts and well-equipped institutes but two in three victims of myocardial infarction do not even reach hospital. A reorientation of health policy to a more prevention-focused approach and joint activities of all administrative, economic and social sectors coordinated at government level are necessary to put health in a more favourable position in the pattern of values in our society. The medical and sociological research work and the community level prevention activities began in 1982 in the 17th district of Budapest. The data of 1,611 residents of the district aged 25-64 were analysed. From data on nutrition, leisure-time physical activity, obesity, blood pressure distribution, and smoking habits it was established that socially unfavourable conditions cause a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)