The role of the drinking water in public health has been recognised for many years. Recent ecological studies of mortality rates in Slovakia when compared to indicators of environmental pollution have shown surprising results – areas with greater air pollution seem to have lower total mortality rates. This paradox may be explained by a number of other factors, including urban/rural occupational conditions, socio-economic status, access to health care, and perhaps drinking water. Overall population access to safe drinking water is about the same between East and West Europe, but more careful evaluation suggest at least one important difference. About 35.7 % of the people in Central and Eastern European countries do not have 100 % access to safe drinking water in their rural areas, compared to only 18.7 % of the rural populations in Western Europe who do not have full access to safe drinking water. This study examines access to safe drinking water, assesses overall drinking water quality, and utilises an index of drinking water quality to perform correlation with total mortality, selected chronic diseases which have been associated with drinking water contamination, and life expectancy at birth. These methods are applied to data for East-West Europe, Slovakia, and detailed urban-rural comparisons for three areas of Slovakia (Trnava, Banská Bystrica, and Košice).

        Key words: drinking water, life expectancy, Central and Eastern Europe