Polish women live 7.5 years longer. Two factors that kill Polish men

• Women in Poland live on average 7.5 years longer than men.
• This difference - for European countries - is one of the largest
• The National Institute of Public Health PZH - State Research Institute warns about this in its latest report
• There are many causes, but it is disturbing that the causes of premature deaths in men, i.e. those before the age of 75, are: alcohol abuse and suicide, especially among young men
• Among men, education has a major impact on life expectancy. Those with higher education live on average nearly 13 years longer than those with less than basic vocational education.

On June 4, the National Institute of Public Health PZH – National Research Institute published the latest edition of the report "The health situation of the Polish population and its determinants 2025", which comprehensively and multidimensionally presents the current image of public health in the country.

Prof. Bogdan Wojtyniak from the National Institute of Public Health, National Institute of Hygiene – National Research Institute, one of the editors of the report, pointed out that the latest document showed a "dramatic" difference in life expectancy between women and men .

- Women in Poland live on average 7.5 years longer than men, which means that a baby girl will live on average 7.4 years longer than a baby boy - pointed out Prof. Wojtyniak.

As he added, we belong to the group of countries in the EU where this difference is the greatest.

In Poland, the average life expectancy of women is 82.0 years, and of men - 74.7 years (data for 2023).

Significantly, it took men more than 30 years to reach the life expectancy that women had in the early 1990s.

The life expectancy of Polish women is two years shorter than the average EU citizen , and in the case of men this difference is 4 years. Poles therefore live shorter than EU citizens.

This results - as the expert explains - "from the baggage that we have been carrying since the beginning of the socio-demographic changes and with which we entered in 1991" .

Since 1991, this unfavourable difference has decreased, but it is not a large decrease, and most of this decrease occurred at the beginning, right after joining the EU and was related to access to healthier food, changing behaviours, and fighting against smoking. - Then we stopped making up and reducing this unfavourable difference - added Prof. Wojtyniak.

As he said, the health problem that contributes most to premature deaths of women and men in Poland compared to the EU is circulatory system diseases .

NIZP-PZH also analyzed the life expectancy of women and men depending on the level of education. Importantly, in the case of men, those with higher education live longer by 12.8 years than men with education below basic, vocational, i.e. lower secondary school or lower.

- In the case of women, this differentiation is smaller, but amounts to almost 9 years; 8.8 years of life expectancy. So these are really dramatic differences in life expectancy, and therefore in the health status of these groups with different levels of education - assessed Prof. Wojtyniak.

The Institute also analyzed the most common causes of responsible deaths, which are lost potential years of life.

- Potential years of life lost are deaths before the age of 75. It is assumed - depending on the country and the situation - that in principle people should live to the age of 75. If someone died earlier, they lost potential years of life. If someone died at the age of 74, they only lost a year, but if someone died at the age of 20, they lost 55 years of potential years of life - explained the expert.

In the case of men, both circulatory system diseases and neoplastic diseases are responsible for these premature deaths and lost potential years of life to a similar extent. Here, there is a great convergence. Until now, circulatory system diseases have been more dominant.

The expert pointed out that premature reconciliation due to alcohol consumption is worrying. - These reasons are responsible for 10 percent of the lost potential years of life for men in Poland - he pointed out.

Another disturbing phenomenon is the "high burden of deaths due to suicide . 6% of the lost potential years of life in men are due to suicide".

What is disturbing is that suicide is a significant cause of death among young men. - Here we have a mental health problem that causes such disastrous health effects - he added.

As for women, the dominant cause of potential years of life lost by women is malignant tumors , which account for nearly 40 percent of potential years of life lost. Breast cancer is dominant, but so is lung cancer .

- In the last year, breast cancer has overtaken tracheal, bronchial and lung cancer - he pointed out.

The death rate from causes that can be avoided through prevention is half as high as the death rate from causes that can be treated.

As many as 2/3 of deaths in people under 75 are due to preventable causes. This is a challenge for diagnostics to identify diseases earlier.

The biggest challenge for Poland remains circulatory system diseases. Mortality due to them is 60% higher than the EU average.

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