Changing life expectancy in central Europe: is there a single reason?

Background: During the 1980s, at a time that life expectancy at birth in western Europe has increased by 2.5 years, it has stagnated or, for some groups, declined in the former socialist countries of central and eastern Europe.

Methods: A study was carried out to ascertain the contribution of deaths at different age groups and from different causes to changes in life expectancy at birth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland between 1979 and 1990.

Development of public health training in Hungary--an exercise in international co-operation.

Following the fall of Communism, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been restructuring their health systems. Restructured medical education is vital to, and has been supported by, the European Union TEMPUS (Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies) scheme. An example is a three-year project in Hungary to develop undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in public health.

The electronic medical-student exchange: a low-cost alternative to overseas electives.

The authors report on an international collaboration that uses the Internet for medical education. In addition to introducing the students to electronic communication, the project aims to further international collaboration and understanding and to emphasize the importance of a population perspective for health and disease. Students and professors in Canada, England and Hungary participated.

Teaching public health: an innovative method using computer-based project work.

Restructuring of training in public health in the Hungarian medical schools is being undertaken in the context of a major European Union TEMPUS Joint European Project. Under the aegis of this project a common core curriculum of public health has been developed. As part of the implementation of the curriculum, new approaches to learning are being explored that should enable students to appreciate the nature and magnitude of the major challenges to public health in Hungary and promote the development of their analytic, interpretative and presentational skills.

Marker profile, enzyme activity, and function of a human myelomonocytic leukemia cell line.

Morphological and functional characteristics of a permanent human leukemia cell line (DD) that possesses myelomonocytic features were investigated. The cells bear a second type Fc gamma receptor and form rosettes with sheep erythrocytes sensitized with rabbit IgG (EA). However, the surface-bound EA is not internalized.