The Individual's Health Is the Health of Society

Abstract

Recently, a fact characterizing a fundamentally new phenomenon for Russia—net depopulation—has been repeated again and again in the mass media (and not only in the mass media). In the last quarter of the past year, our mortality rate was 11.3 per thousand, and the birth rate was only 11.2, i.e., there was a "negative growth." The phenomenon is serious enough in itself and has many aspects, from demographic to economic. It is natural that it should attract attention. However, the inclination to link it directly only with actions of the moment (or with the lack of action), to explain it by the liberalization of prices, etc., is annoying. The problem is much more long-term and complicated. The issue is not so much that the birth rate is declining (this is a worldwide tendency, and the birth rate in Russia is still much higher than in most European countries) as that the mortality rate is rising (this contradicts the same trends, forewarning us of trouble). The ultimate question is one of the stability of this negative process, of the potential, the reserve of health present in society as a whole and in each individual.