News server Aktuality.sk reports that according to recent research, the average household in a Romani settlement in Slovakia has four members and the average age of those living there is roughly 25 - it is rare to find seniors over 65 there. Those are just some of the findings of the national project survey called "Healthy Communities".
The survey took three years and was implemented by experts from the Faculty of Medicine at the PJ Šafárik University in Košice, covering approximately three-fourths of all excluded Romani localities in Slovakia. Researchers logged data in 450 excluded localities in more than 250 municipalities, predominantly in the Banská Bystrica, Košice and Prešov Regions.
The researchers asked almost 15 000 people, with the aid of health care assistants, about their living conditions in those places. "The most important thing this survey demonstrates in detail is that any ideas of an across-the-board, miraculous solution for what to do in these communities, which are frequently considered as one whole, are absurd," summarized Andrej Belák, an anthropologist who led the research and summarized its findings during a presentation earlier this week.
