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LONGEVITY AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM

19. April 2012.

Tanja Knezevic, Director of the Institute of the Public Health of Serbia "Dr. Milan Jovanović-Batut "said that apart from Italy, Germany, Bulgaria and Sweden, Serbia is one of the five countries with the oldest population in Europe.

“We belong to a group of countries that have the oldest population in the world. The average male life expectancy in Serbia is 71.4 years, while the average female life expectancy is 76.6 years. The greatest number of elderly people become ill and dies of chronic diseases, such as of heart and vascular diseases, cancer and diabetes.”

According to her, these data provide us one more reason to work on improvement of the health of the elderly and on disease prevention.  

The municipalities with the oldest population in Central Serbia are those in which the average age of the residents is over 48, and they include Crna trava  (53.5), Gadzin han (51.8), Svrljig (50.7), Babusnica, Razanj and Knjazevac, in which the average life expectancy is 48.  

The municipality with the youngest population is Presevo, the residents of which are 29.9 years old on the average, followed by Tutin, whose residents are 30.8 years old, Bujanovac, the population of which is 33.4 years old and Novi Pazar, the residents of which are 33.5 years old on the average. Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Serbia, Doris Nican, said that this organization called on all member states to urgently focus on the aging issue.

“The major challenges in the sphere of health of the elderly population in the world are non-communicable diseases, such as heart diseases, various forms of stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung diseases.  Most of these conditions can be prevented or treated with minimal costs, "said Ms. Nican. She added that the risk of developing non-communicable diseases might be reduced by adopting healthy behaviors, such as physical activity, proper diet, moderate alcohol consumption and the avoiding of cigarettes.