All-causes mortality rates turned sharply upward for Polish men around 1972. Increases of 25 percent or greater were recorded for all five-year age groups between 40 and 59 years. Other indices, including infant mortality and death rates for women, either continued to improve or did not change. The primary causes accounting for this upturn appear to be cardiovascular diseases and cancer of the lung. The epidemiological pattern in Poland reflects in part the long-term trend for consumption of food, alcohol, and tobacco to approximate that found in Western industrialized countries. The role of more generalized social changes associated with Poland's rapid industrialization cannot be evaluated directly. Although it is still too early to see the effect of the social crisis of the last two years, economic disruption and shortages are not the main factors accounting for the upturn in Polish mortality through 1980. In fact, the success of the Polish economic strategy appears to be the underlying social cause.
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