Recent mortality patterns associated with economic development in eastern Europe and the USSR.

Adult male mortality has turned sharply upward in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Excluding the German Democratic Republic, for which data are not available, agestandardized death rates for men aged 40 to 69 years increased an average of 12 percent from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. These secular trends were associated with consistent economic growth. At least for adult men, this period of social development has led to a marked deterioration in health.