Editing Demographics of Ukraine (section)

===Regional differences in death rates and health===
[[File:Ukraine-death-rate-suicides-by-region.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Death rate from suicides per 100.000 people]]

Death rates also vary widely by region; eastern and southern Ukraine have the highest death rates in the country, and the life expectancy for children born in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kropyvnytskyi, Luhansk, Mikolaiv, and Odesa oblasts is 1.5 years lower than the national average.<ref name="unicef">Unicef. (2004). [http://www.unicef-irc.org/research/ESP/countryreport2004/Ukraine_subnational.pdf The Situation of Children and Young People at the Regional Level in Ukraine Prepared by Ukraine Country Statistical Team Co-ordinator: Iryna Kalachova State Statistic Committee, Kyiv]</ref>

Ukraine had a suicide rate of 16.5 per 100,000 population in 2017, a significant decrease from the suicide rate of 29.6 per 100,000 in 1998. Suicides were more frequent in the central part of the country (the highest suicide rate was in [[Kirovohrad Oblast]]; in western Ukraine, the suicide rate was lower than the national average. [[Lviv Oblast]] had the lowest suicide rate (5.3).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/ |title=Home |website=ukrstat.gov.ua}}</ref>

Southern and eastern Ukraine also suffered from the highest rates of [[HIV]] and [[HIV/AIDS|AIDS]], which impacts life expectancy. In late 2000, 60% of all AIDS cases in Ukraine were concentrated in the Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk oblasts.<ref>The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality of the Kinsey Institute. Tamara V. Hovorun, Ph.D., and Borys M. Vornyk, Ph.D. (Medicine). Rewritten and updated in 2003 by T. V. Hovorun and B. M. Vornyk(2003) [http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/ua.php#contracep Ukraine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100123041426/http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/ua.php#contracep |date=23 January 2010 }}</ref> A major reason behind the higher rates was that the urbanized and industrialized oblasts in the East and South of Ukraine suffered most from the economic crisis in the 1990s, leading to the increased spread of unemployment, alcoholism, and drug abuse, setting the conditions for a wider spread of the epidemic.<ref name="undr">[http://europeandcis.undp.org/rhdr.aids2008/report/hiv_ukraine_en.pdf Vulnerability Assessment of People Living With HIV (PLHIV) in Ukraine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724050553/http://europeandcis.undp.org/rhdr.aids2008/report/hiv_ukraine_en.pdf |date=24 July 2011 }} ''[[United Nations Development Programme]], page 24'' – Retrieved on 8 December 2009</ref>