Cerebrovascular diseases such as strokes and oncological diseases are the ones that most affect the Portuguese and the main causes of death in Portugal.
On World Health Day, which is being reported today, the Lusa agency recovers the most recent data on the diseases that most affect the Portuguese and which contribute most to mortality, based on figures from the Ministry of Health and the National Institute of Statistics.
Circulatory diseases account for almost 30% of total mortality in Portugal, while malignant tumours account for 25%.
However, cerebrovascular diseases have a declining tendency in mortality, while oncological diseases have “a very significant increase among the Portuguese population,” as referred to in the document “Portrait of Health 2018” available on the NHS Portal.
Malignant tumours contributed to more than 27,500 deaths in 2017, emerging as the second cause, with an increase of 0.5% over the previous year.
According to the National Statistics Institute (INE) report on the main causes of death, released earlier this year with data from 2017, diseases of the circulatory system were responsible for about 32,300 deaths, a reduction of 1.3%.
One of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease is hypertension, which affects more than a third of the population between the ages of 25 and 74, according to data from the National Institutes of Health with Physical Examination promoted by the National Institute of Health (INSA).
Obesity also appears as one of the most important risk factors for diseases in Portugal. The same INSA survey showed that 28.7% of Portuguese adults are obese and that over 30% of the children were overweight, although this number has decreased in the last eight years.
In terms of overall health indicators, average life expectancy continues to increase in Portugal, reaching 80.8 years in the period between 2015 and 2018: 77.7 years for men and 83.4 years for women.
This meant a gain of 1.6 months for men and a month for women compared to the period from 2014 to 216, according to the latest report on access to the NHS in 2017, the last one to be published.
INE data indicate that in one decade, there was an increase of 2.3 years of life for the total population.
Also with regard to the average life expectancy at 65 years, 2017 has so far registered the “highest ever value”, with 19.45 years of life from 65 for the total population.
The increase in life expectancy was one of the indicators highlighted in the celebrations in Portugal of the World Health Day, which took place on Friday in Lisbon.
In a documentary video broadcast in the session promoted by the Ministry of Health, the role of vaccination was highlighted as contributing to an increase in life expectancy and reduction of mortality.
In Portugal, 97% of children are vaccinated between the first and second year of life, and in 2018 only 83,000 children were vaccinated for the first time.
This year’s World Health Day, which is being discussed today, is about universal health coverage.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), this means that all citizens anywhere in the world must have access to quality health services without suffering financial constraints.
However, at least half of the world’s population does not have access to full coverage of essential health services.
WHO data also shows that there are 100 million people drawn into extreme poverty because they have to pay for health care.
Official indicators also estimate that about 800 million people, corresponding to 12% of the world’s population, spend at least 10% of their household budget to access health care.
