“Like a pancake on wet pavement”: everyday resonance, asymmetric mobilisation, and the failure of alternatives to neoliberalism in Western Europe, 1973–83

Introduction Health disparities between Eastern and Western part of Europe have been the subject of many studies. Eastern Europe experienced delay in health improvement compared to Western Europe. Life expectancy differences between East and West average 7 years in men and 5 years in women, in favor of the West. Cancer contributes to 12% and 9% of this difference in men and women, respectively. For those 20-64 years, contribution of cancer to this difference is higher at 16% and 24%, respectively. Methods Cancer mortality data and population data (1959-2010) for each country separately were derived from the WHO Mortality Database. Standardized mortality rates were calculated using the world standard population. Results In young men (20-44 years) cancer mortality was equal in Eastern and Western Europe in late 1960s. Since then, a decline in cancer mortality occurred in Western countries while Eastern countries experienced a cancer mortality increase trend. This increase began to decline in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, decreasing the cancer mortality gap between the two European regions for this sex and age group. Similar trend disparities were observed in middle-aged men (45-64 years). However, the decline since 1990 was much slower in Eastern Europe than Western Europe, resulting in a residual gap between the two regions. The oldest men (65+ years) in Western Europe had a higher cancer mortality rate than Eastern Europe for many decades. In early 1990s cancer mortality in Western Europe declined whilst rising in the East. The trends intersected a decade later and despite the plateau observed in recent years in Eastern Europe, the gap remains persistent. In young women (20-44 years), cancer mortality diverted in the early 1970s as cancer mortality declined steadily in Western Europe while rising in the east, similarly in trend to cancer mortality among young men. By the 1990s, rates declined and the gap between the two regions trended towards closure. In middle-aged women (45-64 years) cancer mortality rates in Eastern Europe plateaued for the whole observation period, while western rates fell steadily since the 1970s, resulting in a residual gap between the two regions. For several decades, cancer mortality rates in the oldest women (65+ years) in Western Europe were higher than in the east and both regions experienced plateaus. By the 1990s western cancer mortality rates declined with little change in eastern trends. A small gap persists between the two regions. Conclusions Despite health improvement, a cancer mortality rate gap between Eastern and Western Europe persists across all sex and age strata. In particular, men at age of 45 years and more, and women at age of 45-64 years, experience the greatest disparities between the two regions. Deficiency of primary prevention and poor health awareness remain biggest challenge in Eastern part of Europe. Citation Format: Marta Manczuk, Urszula Sulkowska, Dana Hashim, Paolo Boffetta. The gap in cancer mortality between Western and Eastern Europe. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3710. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3710

Commonwealth countries share their British social policy legacy in a variety of ways. Autstralia attempted to adopt the postwar “new Fabian” welfare state model at the very time when international economic circumstances undermined its Keynesian foundation. With Labor governments in power from 1983 to 1996, Australia diverged significantly from the neo‐liberal reform path adopted in the United Kingdom. Australian governments looked increasingly to European social democracies for alternative social policy models. In a manner anticipating the “Third Way”, the tendency was towards mixing neo‐liberal economics with social democratic welfare. The Australian “Third Way” which resulted proved unstable. Current social reformers, the paper proposes, ought to revisit a neglected but characteristically British emphasis on the need for a measure of “socialization of investment” to underpin redistributive strategies.

National economic indices and reimbursement systems determine transcatheter aortic valve implantation use in Western Europe

A systematic literature review compares the perception of rape myths in Western and Central-Eastern Europe. The analysis includes 77 peer-reviewed scholarly articles published between 2013 and 2023, sourced from the ProQuest, Scopus, and ERIH Plus databases. Western Europe (Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, and Denmark) and Central-Eastern Europe (Croatia, Poland, Cyprus, Greece, and Hungary) were analyzed separately to account for regional differences. The findings indicate that in Central-Eastern European countries, the acceptance of rape myths is higher due to conservative social norms and deeply rooted gender stereotypes. In Western Europe, these myths take more subtle forms and are often masked by seemingly liberal rhetoric. The study highlights the need for further research on rape myths, particularly in Central-Eastern European countries.

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. $35.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

We analyzed time trends in incidence of and mortality from malignant cutaneous melanoma in European populations since 1953. Data were extracted from the EUROCIM database of incidence data from 165 cancer registries. Mortality data were derived from the WHO database. During the 1990s, incidence rates were by far highest in northern and western Europe, whereas mortality was higher in males in eastern and southern Europe. Melanoma rates have been rising steadily, albeit with substantial geographic variation. In northern Europe, a deceleration in these trends occurred recently in persons aged under 70. Joinpoint analyses indicated that changes in these trends took place in the early 1980s. In western Europe, mortality rates have also recently leveled off [estimated annual percentage change (EAPC) from -13.6% (n.s.) to 3.3%], whereas in eastern and southern Europe both incidence and mortality rates are still increasing [incidence EAPCs 2.3-8.9%, mortality EAPCs -1.8% (n.s.) to 7.2%]. Models including the effects of age, period and birth cohort were required to adequately describe the rising incidence trends in most European populations, with a few exceptions. Time trends in mortality were adequately summarized on fitting either an age-cohort model (with the leveling off of rates starting in birth cohorts between 1930 and 1940) or an age-period-cohort model. The most plausible explanations for the deceleration or decline in the incidence and mortality trends in recent years in northern (and to a lesser extent western) Europe are earlier detection and more frequent excision of pigmented lesions and a growing public awareness of the dangers of excessive sunbathing.

An International Survey of Undergraduate Medical Education in Palliative Medicine

The jury is out and the verdict is in, according to most leftist commentators on the African National Congress (ANC) government. The South African political leadership has forgotten its institution...

The 1980s and 1990s have seen a proliferation of corruption scandals across Western Europe. In the most spectacular case, Italy, an entire political class has been put on trial and the political system transformed, largely as a result of public outrage at, and the legal prosecution of, corrupt bureaucrats, businessmen, party officials and members of parliament. The investigations of the so-called Mani Pulite (‘clean hands’) enquiries revealed a massive and complex web of corruption spanning all traditional political parties, including the Italian Communist Party which had been excluded from national — though not local — government for most of the postwar period. The Italian case is perhaps an extreme one, because of the unusual domination of government by one party — the Christian Democrats — and its allies between the late 1940s and the early 1980s, and the challenge mounted against that hegemony by Bettino Craxi’s Socialist Party. This ferocious struggle for political, economic and cultural power meant colonising and exploiting the public sector and indulging in any practice thought expedient, including widespread illegality.

Until the early 1990s, Italy displayed a stable party system, where newcomers found it particularly difficult to challenge the overwhelming influence of the traditional parties: Christian Democrats (DC), Socialist Party (PSI), and Communist Party (PCI). New political formations managed to emerge, but they were largely unable to sustain their electoral success over a long period of time and failed to establish themselves as credible alternatives. The appearance of the Northern League (NL) in the late 1980s was also treated as temporary disaffection of sectors of the electorate from traditional politics. However, this proved not to be the case and the NL went on to become a very central player in the political system. This article examines the conditions for the emergence of the Northern League and its long lasting impact on Italian politics. The Northern League is partly responsible for major changes that occurred in Italy over the last decade and while its electoral fortunes have somewhat declined in recent years, the issues it brought to prominence are today very much central in political debates. The article argues that the NL, far from being a single-issue party, has a clear vision of what Italy in the new millennium should look like. Moreover, the article argues that this vision is similar to the one held by a number of right-wing parties in Western Europe such as Haider’s Freedom Party. Accordingly, the NL has abandoned its pro-independence position and has entered again into a political and electoral alliance with the centre-right Berlusconi-led coalition. This coalition is the favourite to win the 2001 national election and the NL is likely to hold once again a number of key ministerial posts. The presence of the Northern League in the new government will certainly accelerate the pace of decentralising reforms. The initial goal of federalism will probably be achieved after the NL went through a stage of profound radicalisation within which it flirted will independence. The failure of the Padanian project conceived in ethnic terms has brought the NL back to its roots and it is likely that Italy will soon be a federal state.

Population genetic analysis informs the invasion history of the emerging trematode Dicrocoelium dendriticum into Canada

The recent decline in mortality from Hodgkin lymphomas in central and eastern Europe

Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) has emerged as a significant public health challenge worldwide, and the issue of OUD in Western Europe is equally severe. However, there is a lack of systematic analyses specifically focusing on OUD in Western Europe, with existing research primarily concentrated in North America. This limitation hampers our understanding of the true burden of OUD in Western Europe. This study aims to fill the gap in research regarding the burden of OUD in Western Europe by analyzing the epidemiological characteristics from 1990 to 2021. It seeks to provide a comprehensive assessment of the disease burden in the region and to offer scientific evidence for policy-making. The study is based on data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021, utilizing the publicly available database from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). It analyzes indicators such as incidence, prevalence, mortality, and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) across Western European countries. The study employs the Estimated Annual Percentage Change (EAPC) to analyze trends and uses the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model to predict the changes in OUD over the next fifteen years. The analysis reveals that the burden of OUD in Western Europe is generally high across all age groups, particularly among those aged 15 to 60. The burden is significantly higher in males than in females, although the rate of increase is faster among females. Between 1990 and 2021, both mortality rates and years lost to disability have increased significantly, with notable growth in the disease burden in certain countries such as Sweden and the United Kingdom. The ARIMA model predicts that the overall burden of OUD in Western Europe will continue to exceed global levels by 2036, with significant variations in trend patterns among individual countries. This study reveals the complex epidemiological characteristics and future trends of OUD in Western Europe, providing important evidence for the development of targeted prevention and intervention strategies. By identifying high-risk populations and key intervention areas, resource allocation can be optimized, enhancing the effectiveness of interventions to effectively address the opioid crisis.

A Blueprint for Genetic Determinism

The populations of Europe and the U. S. are compared and the general electronics position in Western Europe is surveyed briefly. Two maps illustrate the location and number of organizations engaged in research, development, and production of integrated circuits in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Some early British work is summarized, and details are given of the present position in thin-film and integrated circuits in the United kingdom. The general integrated circuits situation in Western Europe is summarized, and details are given of thin-film and integrated circuits research, development, and production in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway. A bibliography is included of United Kingdom and European publications.