The Welfare and Public Health of the Population of Russia: Adaptation To Economic Volatility

Abstract

The article presents the results of a research into the interrelation between of welfare and the public health of the Russian population in the context of economic volatility. The authors review the indicators used both in Russian and international practice for the assessment of the public sentiments dynamics. The concept of potential of a is shown to be the indicator of the public health. Based on this concept, the pattern of the potential has been formed. It has been developed a methodology for the assessment of the socio-psychological potential of a region, which is based on the central idea of the integrated estimation of the potential of a region as a whole and also from the point of its separate components. The article provides the assessment of the potential of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The authors determine the nature and strength of the relationships between the welfare indicators and the level of the socio-psychological potential of the subjects of the Russian Federation based on the construction of correlation matrices, and besides they identify regional patterns and trends. Population is its country's important asset and is the basis for the economic growth. Periods of economic instability make a significant impact on the well-being of the population. N. Rimashevskaya believes that the reforms of the 1990s impaired the social / demographic development due to the significant deterioration of the habitat and the living standard, social tension and instability, insurmountable difficulties in the adaptation to the transition to market (1). Some researchers tried to explain the negative effects of the social changes on the health of the population by the deformations which emerged in the socio-economic structures of the communities (2). W. Cockerham, on the contrary, insists that the reason of the bad health of the population is the traditional lifestyle of the population of post-communist countries, which contradicts the new economic market relations (3). However, there are no doubts that the societies undergoing fast socio-economic changes experience the collapse of the sphere of meanings and the loss of the will for life. Inability to adapt to new conditions makes the population uncertain about tomorrow, and they do not see a strategy for the proper behavior in the new circumstances. The social stress caused by the sharp decline of the quality of life of population is the cause of the sharp rise of mortality of the population of Russia, the reduction of birthrate and the development of a severe demographic crisis (4, 5). The economic consequences of the crises are smoothed out much faster than the consequences of the social maladjustment of the population, which is reflected in the suicide rate of the population (6- 10). In the period of 1990-1995 the number of suicides in Russia increased 1,6 times (Fig. 1). Despite the positive downward trend since the early 2000s, Russia's average rate of mortality from suicides exceeds the upper critical limit established by WHO (20 incidents per 100,000 people). Moreover, both the dynamics and the rate of suicides depend on the region of Russia. In 2013, the mortality from deliberately self-inflicted injuries in Russia ranged from 5.5 per 100,000 people in the North Caucasus Federal District to 31.4 in the Siberian Federal District. Such sharp regional differentiation in the social and psychological state of the population results in unequal adaptation potential of the population of the region in respect of the socio-economic and political transformations, and ultimately determines the welfare of the population of the Russian regions. In her characteristic of the level of well-being of the Russian society, N. Rimashevskaya noted that the social disorder of the population is come out in the disastrous increase of abnormal and asocial behavior: alcoholism; drug addiction, especially among youth, criminalization of social environment; sharp increase in the number of suicides (11). To prove or disprove this thesis, it is necessary to evaluate the dependence between the welfare of the population in the region and the public health in the context