Social Deprivation of Persons Older Than Working Age in Terms of Causes of Death Which Require Forensic Medical Examination

Abstract

The article analyzes the structure of forensic medical examinations of persons older than working age and its change during the period of improving social and economic conditions in the country. Persons whose causes of death are determined by forensic medical examination are considered as a deviant group of people who did not adapt to changing socio-cultural conditions and to age changes. This is manifested in the causes and circumstances of death (external causes, death at home without witnesses, death on street or in hospital without examination). The information on 72 324 forensic examinations of elderly residents in the Nizhny Novgorod oblast for 2003–2017 is analyzed. It is done in terms of sex, residency in the oblast center or in rural areas, and age group (advanced age: 60–74 years for men and 55–74 years for women; senile age: 75–84 years; age of longevity: 85 years and older). It is shown that the size of the deviant group of retirees is increasing, and this increase is not a consequence only of the population aging. The contribution of loneliness to the formation of the deviant group exceeds the contribution of socioeconomic disadvantages: no correlation is found between the frequency of forensic examinations and the mortality from causes related to alcohol; from 2003 to 2017, the share of external causes of death and the proportion of corpses taken for examination from the street decreased. The structure of external and somatic causes of death of persons older than working age that are established during forensic medical research is determined by age, place of residence, as well as social and economic situations in the oblast, which changed over the period studied in direction of reducing differences.