International Health Assistance for Eurasia

EVIDENCE is accumulating of substantial deterioration in the health status of people living in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.1 , 2 The public health system has degenerated in recent decades. Support for preventive services has been largely rhetorical. The Soviet health care system relied excessively on hospitals to provide primary care. The Soviet Union spent only one eighth the amount spent by the United States on health services, and less than half the average amount spent by other industrialized nations.3 The system was inefficient and inequitable and remains so. Although international health assistance need not be hugely expensive,4 , 5 even limited . . .