Editing Polish People's Republic (1947–1989) (section)

=== Healthcare ===

Before the Communists took over, Poland was a terribly unhealthy nation. According to the University of Bath (one of the top-ranked research universities in [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|Great Britain]]):<blockquote>Before World War II (WWII) Poland was one of the countries with the poorest health in Europe. In the 1930's life expectancy in Poland was around 46 years for both sexes; in the same period in Germany it was over 61 years. Infant mortality was estimated at the level of 150 deaths per 1000 live births. The situation was exacerbated by WWII; between 1939 and 1945 life expectancy in Poland fell by 20-25 years.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=Mateusz Zygmunt Zatonski, Witold A. Zatonski|year=2016|title=Health in the Polish People's Republic|title-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210720101218/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305806087_Health_in_the_Polish_People's_Republic|publisher=University of Bath}}</ref></blockquote>These statistics are verified in the 1948 UN Statistical Yearbook (pg. 58), which included data from 1931 onwards, reflecting the poor healthcare conditions in pre-communist Poland. Once the socialist system was in place, things began to improve rapidly. According to the University of Bath:<blockquote>The health transformation that took place in Poland after WWII proceeded very rapidly. Control of infectious diseases and infant mortality became a state priority in the post-war Polish People’s Republic... Life expectancy in Poland increased to 70 years and infant mortality decreased to 30 deaths per 1000 live births.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>Thus, we can see that life expectancy was increased by decades, and infant mortality fell by eighty percent. These changes (and similar ones in other socialist nations) led to Central and Eastern Europe nearly closing the healthcare gap with Western Europe, which had been so pronounced before socialism:<blockquote>The epidemiological transition that in the United Kingdom or [[Germany]] took almost a century, in Poland, and many other Central and [[Eastern Europe|East European]] (CEE) countries, occurred in the two decades following WWII. This process led the CEE region to almost closing the health gap dividing it from Western Europe in the 1960's.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>On the downside, the Polish People's Republic saw rapidly increasing consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, which led to increased rates of preventable death. This problem also occurred in other nations in the Soviet bloc:<blockquote>In Poland the consumption of vodka and smoking prevalence reached some of the highest levels in Europe. This dramatic increase in exposure to lifestyle risk factors (an increase in cigarette sale from 20 billion cigarettes per annum after WWII to around 100 billion in the 1980s, and an increase of alcohol consumption from 3 liters per annum to nearly 9 liters in the same period), led Poland and the CEE region to a health catastrophe caused by the rise of chronic diseases.<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>Despite these problems (which were not the result of socialism, but rather of excessive drinking and smoking), the healthcare achievements of the Polish People's Republic remain impressive.

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