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Polish culture remained strong

Poland, having over 38 million inhabitants is one of the more populated countries of Europe. The number of people grew fast in the first decade after the war, mainly due to ht every dynamic natural increase rate. Later with small deviations it began to lover. Poland is one of the European countries which have a medium population density (119 people/km2). The most densely populated voivodships are: Lodz - over 750 people/km2, Warsaw - over 630 people/km2, Katowice - over 850 people/km2 and Cracow - over 370 people/km2. The northern and eastern territories are much more sparsely populated: Suwalki, Lomza and Slupsk. In Poland there are 835 towns and 61% of the population lives in them.

Education in Poland is free and compulsory for eight years between the ages of seven and 14 years. Before the age of seven, children may attend cr¸ches (zlobki) and kindergartens (przedszkola). In 1990 46% of children between the ages of three and six years attended kindergarten, and 90% of six years old attended pre-school educational establishments. Basic schooling begins at seven years of age with the eight-year school (szkola podstawowa). Curricula are uniform through Poland. There is a small number of private schools, administered under state supervision. In 1989 the Roman Catholic Church was granted the right to operate its own schools.

Secondary education is provided free of charge to candidates who are successful in the entrance examination, and in 1990 about 75% attended vocational and technical schools (technika zawodowe), or basic vocational schools (zasadnicze szkoly).

Children who leave the eight-years school to continue with their education enter general secondary schools (liceum ogolnoksztalcace), where four-year courses lead to college or university entrance. In 1990/91 there were 96 higher educational establishments in Poland, including 11 universities and 18 technical universities. Expenditure from the government budget on education for 1990 was 28,249,900m.zlotys (14.6% of total budgetary-expenditure).

Polish higher education is provided by 110 institutions for 495 thousand people, three quarters of those full-time students. Woman constitute of half of the studying population. Most young people study at universities (160.000) and technical colleges (80.000), less popular are teacher training colleges, agricultural and medical schools.

Adverse environmental conditions may effect the health of the general population. The type and degree of effects that may occur in a population depend not only on the potential for exposure to certain environmental factors, but also on the interaction on the factors with other environmental variables such as urbanization, industrialization, sanitation conditions, transport activities and climate.

Over the past two decades environmental health problems have been receiving increasing attention at both national and international levels. Much effort is now directed towards the identification, control and elimination of environmental risk factors. This had led to considerable improvements in the collection, availability and quality of environmental health-related data. The World Health Organization (WHO) is particularly active in this area. Several other international organizations are involved in the collection of health-related statistics. Other sources of data for this section include the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)., the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations Disaster Relief Co-ordinator (UNDRO), the International Road Federation (IRF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

During last years, air pollution has reached a level that makes the country one of the most polluted regions of Europe. Between 1987 and 1989 emission of sulphur dioxide ( SO2) from Poland were maintained on the level of about 4 million tones annually (about 10% of the total emissions of SO2 in Europe). Recently this situation is improving, in 1991 the emissions of SO2 amounted to 3.2 million tones (20% less).

Definitely, the worst situation is in Katowice voivodship, where an area of 2,1% of territory of whole country emits as much as 20-25% of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen, oxide and dust. This part of country is considered to be the most polluted region in Europe. This causes the dramatic health situation of about 4 million people living there. Currently, significant air contamination of Poland results in extensive health problems.

The laws regulating allowable emission from all stationary burning processes were published for the first time in 1990.

In 21% of Poland the noise level is above the norm and it affects one-third of the population. The impact of noise on people is often ignored because it is not immediately felt. Only 12% of the areas adjoining hospitals meet the acoustic requirements that are set out for them, while in 40% of these areas the equivalent noise levels exceed the limit of 60 dB. In most health-resorts like Cieplice-Zdroj, Kudowa Zdroj, Krynica, Szczawno-Zdroj the allowable noise level is exceeded a great deal. The following picture illustrate the Noise Exposure in Poland.

As a result of nuclear explosions conducted in the atmosphere and the accident in the nuclear power station in Charnobyl, the environment in Poland has been contaminated by many artificial radio nuclides. The majority of them have decayed totally because of their short half-lives and the present time do not appear in Poland. At the same time, artificial radioactive elements which have long half-lives continue to contaminate the environment.

Scientific studies let us estimate that the value of the yearly effective dose caused by radiation of artificial radio nuclides received by the average inhabitant of Poland in 1991 is 0.032 mSv.