As a result the European Commission press release focussed on the low take up and geographic differences for preventative health checkups - particularly those for prostate and colorectal cancers. Whilst the Eurobarometer report found most EU citizens thought themselves to be healthy, it also found an increase in the number reporting long standing health problems since the last survey in 2005 as well as a greater proportion of those with the lowest education reporting poor health.
In addition to recording peoples opinion of their health status, the survey also sought information on their use of preventive health checkups.
General checkups such as dental, eye and hearing check ups demonstrated a wide disparity of availability and take up across the EU.
As regards specific health checkups such as cholesterol, blood pressure and cancer screening the survey highlighted those issues where screening is currently at low levels - particularly for prostate and colorectal cancers. The survey could not indicate however whether this was due to poor take up or low availability of testing.
