Description of the situation

The health of the Roma population is affected by several factors. Beside the low awareness of health issues, it also includes the risk behavior of the Roma. The lifestyle of the majority of the Roma is diametrically different from the lifestyle of the general population. A great number of the Roma living in socially excluded villages do not favour an active lifestyle and do sports only during their childhood. When we speak of an unhealthy lifestyle, it is necessary to mention the consumption of unhealthy food. It is caused by the use of traditional cuisine and the price unavailability of healthy groceries. The factors affecting the health of the Roma contain also bad hygiene habits. The isolation of villages in which they live also causes significantly low awareness of the rights for healthcare as well as the distrust for official health institutions. In these fields the preventive programmes should take place emphasizing the importance of upholding vaccination programme from the health point of view. It is also necessary to provide the access to the vaccination programme for all children. A successfully realized programme secured by field workers directly at the place of residence to increase the vaccination of the children from segregated villages by more than 80% (Popper et al., 2009).

Overall, the health of the Roma population is worse than that of the majority while it is affected in a major way by a bad lifestyle tied to bad eating habits, increased consummation of alcohol, frequent smoking, higher weight and lower physical movement (Bartošovič and Hegyi, 2010; Hubková et al., 2012). It is known that the low quality of accommodation is tied to increased environmental risk and bad health (Braubach and Fairburn, 2010, Evans and Kantrowitz, 2002). Due to the bad conditions of the hygiene standard, a high occurrence of infection diseases is recorded among the Roma population. The most frequent are tuberculosis, parasitizes, hepatitis, meningitis and dysentery. One of the significant factors affecting health is the availability of fresh water (Barabas, 2005). Life expectancy is lower than that of the rest of the population. Based on the estimates, there is a difference of 7.5 years for men and 6.6 years for women to the detriment of the Roma (Moricová and Raučinová, 2006). The situation is furthermore enhanced by a bad approach and the use of healthcare services (Fésüs et al., 2012).

Source: http://www.acec.sk/o-nas/historia-acec

References

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Bartošovič, I., Hegyi, L. 2010. Zdravotné problémy rómskeho etnika, Lek. Obzor 4, 2010.
Braubach, M., Fairburn, J. Social inequalitis in environmental risks associated with housing and residential location, a review of evidence, Eur. J. Public Health 20, 36- 42, 2010.
Evans, G. W., Kantrowitz, E. Socio-economic status and health: the potential role of environmental risk exposure, Annu. Rev. Public Health 23, 303-331, 2002.
Fésüs, G., Ostlin, P., McKee, M., Ádány, R. Policies to improve the health and well-being of Roma people: The European experience, Health Policy 105, 25-32, 2012.
Hubková B, Ďurovcová E, Birková A, Guzy J. Mareková M, Rácz O, Hepa-Meta team. 2012. Hodnotenie zdravotného stavu marginalizovaných Rómskych komunít na Východnom Slovensku, močové parametre. In: Laboratórna Diagnostika, 2012, roč. 17, č. 1, s. 38-47.
Moricová Š., Raučinová M. Rómsky asistent a spolupráca v komunite, Verejné zdravotníctvo 4, 2006.
Popper,M., Szeghy,P., Šarkozy, S. 2009. Rómska populácia a zdravie: Analýza situácie na Slovensku. FSG:2009. ISBN: 978-84-692-5485-1