BACKGROUND Cross-country comparisons of unofficial payments in the health sector are sparse. In 2002 we conducted a social audit of the health sector of the three Baltic States. METHODS Some 10,320 household interviews from a stratified, last-stage-random, sample of 30 clusters per country, together with institutional reviews, produced preliminary results. Separate focus groups of service use...

BACKGROUND Altered functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and altered melatonin production might modulate the circadian symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. OBJECTIVE To investigate the influence of different winter photoperiods on the circadian rhythms of serum melatonin, cortisol, tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha), and interleukin 6 (IL6) in patients with rh...

Post-mining restoration sites often develop novel ecosystems as soil conditions are completely new and ecosystem assemblage can be spontaneous even on afforested sites. This study presents results from long-term monitoring and evaluation of an afforested oil-shale quarry in Estonia. The study is based on chronosequence data of soil and vegetation and comparisons are made to similar forest site-...

BACKGROUND Dramatic social changes took place in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in the 1990s. This study investigates the extent to which social variations in self-assessed health changed during that period. METHODS Norbalt Living Conditions Survey I (1994) and II (1999) random population-based samples in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were analysed. Associations of self-ass...

BACKGROUND More than one third of adult population in Estonia has problems with elevated blood pressure (BP). The Hypertension in Estonia (HYPEST) study represents the country's first hypertension-targeted sample collection aiming to examine the epidemiological and genetic determinants for hypertension (HTN) and related cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in Estonian population. The HYPEST subjects (...

Jõgi, R. 2001. Asthma: Respiratory Symptoms, Atopy and Bronchial Hyperresponsiveness in Young Adults in Estonia and Sweden. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1076. 64 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-5119-5. Morbidity of asthma has increased over the world. The reasons for this increase have remained unclear. Studies in childre...

Although sheep (Ovis aries) have been one of the most exploited domestic animals in Estonia since the Late Bronze Age, relatively little is known about their genetic history. Here, we explore temporal changes in Estonian sheep populations and their mitochondrial genetic diversity over the last 3000 years. We target a 558 base pair fragment of the mitochondrial hypervariable region in 115 ancien...

BACKGROUND Post-communist transition has had a huge impact on mortality in Eastern Europe. We examined how educational inequalities in mortality changed between 1990 and 2000 in Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. METHODS Cross-sectional data for the years around 1990 and 2000 were used. Age-standardized mortality rates and mortality rate ratios (for total mortality only) were calculated ...

In the past decades of the history of Estonia, there have occurred few events which have profoundly affected and touched more or less the entire population of the country. One of these events was undoubtedly the loss of the motor vessel “Estonia” on September 28th 1994 on its way from Tallinn to Stockholm with 989 persons on board, of whom over 800 died1. More recently, the events which took pl...

AIM To describe cataract surgical services in 1998 in 12 eastern European countries and to identify their needs to reduce cataract blindness. METHODS All inpatient eye departments in the 12 countries received a standardised questionnaire; the data obtained were further processed at the coordinating centre in Prague. RESULTS All 458 eye departments in the region were involved. The response r...