Health in Europe--policies for progress

The WHO European region includes 53 member states of enormous diversity, with a total population of around 750 million people, and stretches from Greenland to the Bering Strait. During the past two decades, most European countries have made impressive progress in population health. This progress has, however, been uneven, and the health divide across the European region is unacceptably large. Mean life expectancy at birth in the WHO European region was more than 72 years for men and around 80 years for women in 2010. Yet overall life expectancy varies from 69 years in Russia to 82 years in Switzerland, with huge variations within some countries. The noteworthy heterogeneity of health progress in the European population could result from intrinsic differences in resources for health care (including support for basic measures such as control of tobacco and hypertension), in willingness to take action, or in negative effects of political divisions. Public health experts argue that conditions that improve population health have to be shaped in the policy arena to suit national and regional circumstances. If so, what measures are available to policy makers in Europe to increase the success of public health policies in the face of the financial crisis and ageing populations?