2693

HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF CHILDREN IN THE FIVE NORDIC COUNTRIES

Kohler L

Nordic School of Public Health, Goteborg, Sweden

In 1984 and in 1996, major studies of children's health and well-being were carried out by the Nordic School of Public Health. Both studies have been performed by mailed questionnaires to representative samples of families with children 2-17 years age, 3000 in each of the five Nordic countries each year, i. e. altogether 30 000 children.

The foundation for the studies has been a basic welfare concept. It means that the well-being of the children is recorded through variables such as long-term illness, psychosomatic symptoms and quality of life and then related to socio-economic factors (income, housing, education, employment), socio-relational factors (family, intimate and extended networks) and personal factors (activity, self esteem, political resources, basic mood, satisfaction with life, sense of coherence).

Thus, the aim of the studies has been to place the health and well-being of children and their families in a proper social, economic and political context. By the later study, in 1996, it has also been possible to record changes of the health situation and relate if to the economic and social changes that have occurred in all Nordic School of Public Health countries since the first study, in 1984.

The results show that Nordic children enjoy a very high standard of living, that they are healthy, physically, mentally and socially, and that the differences between the countries are small. The number of long-term ill children and children with psychosomatic problems has clearly increased in the last study, most probably due to increased level of economic and social stress in the families. There is still a clear difference between socio-economic groups, and especially vulnerable are children in families with unemployed father or mother and in one-parent families. The quality of life is, however, in general still very high and has not diminished.