Abstract
The Roma are Europe’s largest minority. They are also one of its most disadvantaged, with low levels of education and health and high levels of poverty. Research on Roma health often reveals higher burdens of disease in the communities studied. This paper aims to review the literature on communicable diseases among Roma across Eastern and Central Europe. A PubMed search was carried out for communicable diseases among Roma in these parts of Europe, specifically in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and North Macedonia. The papers were then screened for relevance and utility. Nineteen papers were selected for review; most of them from Slovakia. Roma continue to have a higher prevalence of communicable diseases and are at higher risk of infection than the majority populations of the countries they live in. Roma children in particular have a particularly high prevalence of parasitic disease. However, these differences in disease prevalence are not present across all diseases and all populations. For example, when Roma are compared to non-Roma living in close proximity to them, these differences are often no longer significant.
Highlights
The Romani, or Roma are the largest transnational minority in Europe
Twelve of the 19 papers are from Slovakia
Many papers are authored by the same research teams, for example, six papers from Slovakia are by the HepaMeta team and rely on the same database, which examines a cross-section of Roma and non-Roma in Košice in eastern Slovakia
Summary
The Romani, or Roma are the largest transnational minority in Europe. Anthropological and more recently genetic mapping, their roots can be traced to original nomadic communities in north-west India [1]. They began their migration westwards between the 6th to 10th century, with groups settling along the way, entering Europe in the 12th century. Roma communities across Europe and Central Asia gradually formed diverse endogamous sub-groupings, still retaining large parts of their language and culture [1,2]. In Europe alone they number around 11 million, the vast majority living in Eastern and Central Europe (Table S1). During Nazi rule, they became the victims of genocide, which the Roma call “Porajmos” [5]
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