Bulgaria among top three in EU countries in children in good health – Eurostat
In European Union countries in 2017, the percentage of children aged under five considered to be in good or very good health ranged from 92.4 per cent in Estonia to more than 99 per cent in Bulgaria, Malta, Romania and Italy, EU statistics agency Eurostat said.
In 2017, more than 95 per cent of children in the European Union (EU) were considered to be in good or very good general health.
This percentage changes only slightly by age group, from 96.5 per cent for those aged under five, to 95.9 per cent for those aged five to nine and 95.2 per cent for those aged 10 to 15. The percentage of children whose general health was considered to be bad or very bad was under one per cent for all age groups.
Among children aged five to nine, the proportion of those considered to be in good or very good health was lowest in Portugal (89.3 per cent) and Latvia (91.2 per cent) and highest in Romania (99.8 per cent), Cyprus (98.9 per cent), Italy (98.8 per cent) and Greece (98.7 per cent).
Among those aged 10 to 15, the percentage considered to be in good or very good health varied from below 90 per cent in Latvia (88.0 per cent), Portugal (88.7 per cent) and Estonia (89.6 per cent) to above 98 per cent in Romania (99.1 per cent), Italy (98.4 per cent) and Bulgaria (98.2 per cent).
In 2017, among children aged under five, the percentage considered to have severe limitations in activity due to health problems was less than one per cent in all EU countries except the United Kingdom (1.1 per cent), Belgium (1.4 per cent), Finland (1.5 per cent) and Austria (1.6 per cent).
For moderate limitations in activity there was greater variation among EU countries, ranging from less than one per cent in Italy (0.2 per cent), Cyprus (0.6 per cent), Malta (0.7 per cent) and Bulgaria (0.9 per cent) to 4.9 per cent in Denmark, 7.8 per cent in Lithuania, 8.6 per cent in Latvia.
For children aged five to nine, the proportion with severe limitations in activity was highest in the UK (3.7 per cent), Denmark (2.4 per cent), Luxembourg (2.3 per cent) and Hungary (2.2 per cent), and lowest in Italy and Bulgaria (both 0.3 per cent).
Moderate limitations in activity ranged from 0.2 per cent in Italy and 0.9 per cent in Greece to 7.9 per cent in Finland, 8.3 per cent in Lithuania, 8.4 per cent in Estonia and 11.9 per cent in Latvia.
Among those aged 10 to 15, proportions with severe limitations in activity ranged from 0.1 per cent in Lithuania to 2.9 per cent in Luxembourg and 4.7 per cent in the UK, while moderate limitations varied between 0.7 per cent in Slovakia and 0.8 per cent in Italy and Cyprus to 10.9 per cent in Denmark, 11.4 per cent in Finland and 13.5 per cent in Latvia, Eurostat said.
