Jakub Stokwiszewski

The aim of the study was to analyze the level and dynamics of changes in mortality from all causes of death as well as the main groups of causes i.e. cardiovascular diseases, cancer and external causes in Poland in the years 1999–2013 compared to the situation in the group of 15 countries that make up the European Union before the accession of new members in 2004. The analysis was carried out for the total population, people aged 25–64 years and older population of people aged 65 years and more.
The results of the analysis indicate a gradual improvement of the health status of the Polish population as evidenced by the declining fairly steadily mortality rates from main causes of death for people in the younger as well as older age groups. At the same time it should be stressed that, compared with the situation in the EU15 situation we observe in Poland cannot be regarded as satisfactory particularly in the case of men of working age.
Certainly cardiovascular diseases have to be considered as one of the most important health problems in Poland being a major threat to the life of Polish population which, while systematically decreasing, is still significantly higher than in most European Union countries. In addition, the pace of decline in mortality rates due to these diseases when compared to the situation in the EU15 is still too slow to achieve in the real future average level of mortality in those countries. It should be noted that excess mortality from cardiovascular disease in men and women in Poland in relation to the inhabitants of EU15 countries is much larger than in the case of cancer mortality which proves the urgent need for more intensive and better targeted health policy in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Polish Cardiac Society recommends to use SCORE tables to estimate the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in clinical practice.
The aim of the study was (1) to compare the estimates of the risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) obtained by using a SCORE function calibrated for the Polish population in 2007 with the risk calculated from the observed number of CVD deaths in the last decade, and (2) to compare the estimates of the risk of death from CVD obtained by using a SCORE function calibrated for the Polish population in 2015 with the CVD risk estimated from the observed number of deaths in 2012, using data on the prevalence of risk factors from the two studies of the representative samples of Polish adult population (WOBASZ and WOBASZ 2).
The risk identified by the SCORE 2007 function was higher than the observed risk by 20–40% in men and 18–33% in women. This indicated that the SCORE 2007 function overestimated cardiovascular risk. The risk calculated by using the SCORE 2015 function was more similar to the CVD risk estimated by using the current mortality data. However, SCORE 2015 function may overestimate CVD risk in future if the decreasing mortality trend would persist in Poland.