The health of people living in Dublin, Kildare and Wickow has improved but we lag behind our European neighbours, according to the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA).
Deaths from cancer and heart disease have fallen in the past decade, the annual report of the Public Health Department of the ERHA says. And the incidence of AIDS, Meningitis C and TB has fallen, though cases of HIV are steadily increasing.
The premature death rate from heart disease in the eastern region has fallen from 54 per 100,000 to 43 per 100,000 in the last decade, according to the annual report of the department of public health in the ERHA.
Director of public health Dr Brian O'Herlihy said the region has significantly lower mortality rates compared with Ireland as a whole. The highest mortality rates in the region are in Kildare and parts of Dublin, and twice as many men as women die from heart disease.
The report says Ireland has the highest rate of premature heart disease (under 65 years) in the EU and heart disease is responsible for a quarter of all deaths in the country each year. There has been a significant drop in death rates from the common cancers in the region, the report says
Dr O'Herlihy said there has been a dramatic increase in the level of hospital treatments carried out for cancer - this reflects a combination of more effective treatments and earlier detection. The death rate from cancer for men dropped by over 8 per cent and for women by 9.7 per cent between 1992 and 1999.
Death rates of women under 65 from breast cancer dropped by well over a fifth while hospitalisation for breast cancer treatment increased by about 45 per cent in the region, he said.
There were sharply different outcomes for men and women as regards lung cancer, the commonest cause of cancer death in the western world. The death rate from lung cancer for men fell by over one fifth in the 10-year period - but for women the decline was "disappointingly small" at 5.5 per cent. In the east, 586 people died from lung cancer in 1999 - 158 were under the age of 65.
The incidence of AIDS has been falling for five years as more effective drug therapies slow the progression to AIDS-related illnesses in people with HIV. However, cases of newly-diagnosed HIV infection are increasing with the most rapid increase occurring in the heterosexual population.