Balkan Women Have Shortest Lives in EU, Report

Women from the Balkans have shorter lives than women in other EU states, according to the UK Guardian, comparing women's health in the bloc, and drawing on a new report issued by Public Health England and data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.

It reveals a gap of almost ten years in life expectancy between women in Bulgaria and Romania, at the bottom of the chart, and woman in France and Spain, at the top of the chart. Women in Spain can expect to live to 86.3 years.

Four of the top five countries in terms of women's life expectancy, according to the Guardian, are Mediterranean countries, which may spark further interest in the health properties of the so-called "Mediterranean diet", which features a lot of olive oil, fish and vegetables and relatively little dairy and meat products. The only exception is Luxembourg.

The bottom four, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria - where women on average die well before reaching 80 - are all former communist, Eastern-bloc states.

Women in the UK come in 17th place in the EU, just below Ireland, The Netherlands and Germany.

The findings confirm that average wages and nations' overall wealth are inexact guides to longevity; women in relatively poor Portugal, for example, outlive their counterparts in wealthy Holland, Denmark and Germany.

Of western Balkan and former Yugoslav countries, only Slovenia made it into the top ten in terms of women's life expectancy, coming in eighth place, just above Portugal.

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