BBC Monitoring Russian health experts present latest "shocking figures" - newspaper Source: Obshchaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 1 Mar 01
A general meeting of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences is now under way in Moscow. In addition to addressing organizational issues and electing a president and presidium, the medical academy discussed the population's health problems. In his report, Oleg Shchepin, director of the Institute for Scientific Research in Social Hygiene, Economics and Health Care Management, presented shocking figures and equally shocking comments.
Since 1994, Russia's adult population has decreased by 2 million and its child population by 6 million. In the past 10 years, the mortality rate among the population as a whole increased by 31.8 per cent while the rate among the working-age population increased by 38.5 per cent... The average life expectancy is 59 years for males and 72 years for females.
Scientists consider the high mortality rate among the working-age population the main reason for the decrease in average life expectancy. The cream of the nation is dying not only because of cardiovascular and oncology diseases which are the main problem throughout the world but primarily for reasons categorized in the statistics as "accidents, poisonings, and injuries". These have been among the leading causes of death in the past five years.
Boris Velichkovskiy, one of Oleg Shchepin's colleagues at the medical academy, links these indicators with the reforms and the country's sociopolitical situation. According to his observations, the mortality rate among the working-age population rises sharply each time there is a big cataclysm - the fight with parliament in 1993 and the financial crisis in 1998. Studies have shown one other factor most likely affects people's health, in addition to stress. It is termed "impairment of the dynamic stereotype of higher nervous activity" that ensures the body's stable existence...
Here are some other striking indicators. Since 1997, the mortality rate among children and young women has risen sharply. Specialists link this rise directly and indirectly with the fact that prostitution has become the main form of income for a certain portion of this population group.
Furthermore - in the past 15 years, the number of adolescents diagnosed with "drug addition" increased by a factor of 15, and the mortality rate among the said group has increased by a factor of 42.
The sharp deterioration of indicators characterizing the nation's health is not only linked directly to political and economic cataclysms but is also connected with the state of health care, which can be assessed on the basis of just two points from Oleg Shchepin's report. The chart "cause of death" in official Russian medical documents often simply lists "old age" with no mention of details. Amazingly, this "diagnosis" is even applied to people who have died at age 55!
And here is another fact. Interestingly, levels of certain cardiovascular diseases in Russia are lower than in Austria, for example. But the mortality rate as a result of these diseases is significantly higher. This means - and the official figures confirm - that in the overwhelming majority of patients, these diseases are not recorded while the patients are alive. As they say, "An autopsy will tell."
Many of these figures have been cited previously, even by President Putin, who used the term "demographic hole" when commenting on them. But this is the first time these data have been assembled together and subjected to the necessary analysis.
No commentary is needed.