Country Profile

The Czech Republic is one of the New Member States of the European Union. It has been undergoing significant macroeconomic reforms since 1993, when it split from Czechoslovakia. Health inequalities are a relatively new subject on the political agenda, as during the previous political system the issue was not recognized. This has left a legacy in how the public perceives health inequalities. According to a study conducted by Czech National Institute of Public Health in 2001, only a quarter of society feels that there are differences in health status between different socio-economic groups. The Czech Republic scores highly on equality measure as indicated by Gini coefficient 0.254, where 0=perfect equality and 1=perfect inequality (United Nations Human Development Report, 2004).

The issue of health inequalities has been researched in academic circles and the publication of WHO Health for All document led to increased interest in the subject matter. However, no official political document exists that would set the strategy to tackle health inequalities. There is also no specialized unit dealing with health inequalities and responsibilities are shared between different ministries.

Largely thanks to EU policy and pressure, the social determinants of health inequalities are now being discussed in political documents, in research and in university curricula. However, to date, there is still very little evidence of this translating into practice.

The background information to this entry was collected by the Czech project partner - Professor Vladimir Kebza of the Czech National Public Health Institute.
The following persons also contributed either by participating in the roundtable discussion or by providing their comments independently:

• Hana Drahoňovská, M.D., NIPH, co-ordinator of the EU projects activities;
• Věra Kernová, M.D., NIPH, head of the National Reference Centre of Health Promotion;
• Lumír Komárek, M.D., Assoc. Prof., NIPH, head of the Centre of Health and Living conditions;
• Kamil Provazník, M. D., Professor, CINDI Programme Foundation Prague (a representant of Uhe NGO sector);
• Jarmila Rážová, M.D., Czech Ministry of Health (a civil servant);
• Věra Tučková, M.D., Regional Public Health Office in Liberec (a practitioner)
• Petr Švec, the Healthy Cities Project Co-ordinator in the Czech Republic

Policies, strategies and other documents

This section provides the key documents on health inequalities published on a national level in the Czech Republic in the  past decade.

Tools and resources

In this section main tools used to implement and monitor national policies in the field of health inequalities are listed.

Key Actors

In this section key actors that are in a position to have an impact on health inequalities policies, such as ministries, state agencies, universities and/or independent institutes are listed.

National database of good practice

Please click here to learn about the databases where you can find a collection of good practices aiming at reducing health inequalities collected in the Czech Republic.