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Health Study in Russia

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Health Study in Russia 2

Some decades back, Russia was listed as one of the best country offering efficient and quality

health care service to its citizens. The Soviet Union government had health as a priority, and

most shares of its expenditure went to the health sector. The constitution of Russia stated that

every citizen had right to free care and with the intervention of voluntary health care service,

health was not an issue. However, Things changed after the breaking up of Soviet Union. The

health condition in Russia moved from good to worst and then to catastrophic. Russia has

144,498,215million citizens with a GDP per capita of 8,748.36 and has a life expectancy of

70.91 years as per Jan 2017 statistics. With such a population, health crisis seems to affect many

and when not taken care of in time results in drastic deaths. The current health situation is

alarming and needs quick intervention to rejuvenate the health status that was in Russia in early

90’s.

Cardiovascular diseases in Russia

In Europe and Russia to be precise, cardiovascular disease claims more deaths than any other

disease. This was not the case back in 1980,s but due to the change in social factors, the disease

claims 27% of the mortality rate. Compared to other diseases, cardiovascular disease has 57.9%

followed by cancer with 15.8%. Some of the significant factors that lead to this number include a

change in dietary, Alcohol and drug use, tobacco smoke, air pollution, intake of foods with high

cholesterol and obesity (Nicholas et al., 2014). Adults with 80+ years are most affected, but the

age bracket of 61-80 has also recorded a significant rise in the rate compared to years before

2003.

The government has launched various projects to prevent the additional increase of the disease.

The government has launched various in different localities for universal screening at no cost.

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Also, the government has introduced Dispanserization program that offers citizens screening and

preventive counseling worldwide. The government has been fully involved in enhancing the

state-of-art in Russia in a bid to eradicate this menace. This is a good initiative although the

government also needs to focus more on predisposing factors like air pollution and drug use.

Premature mortality

Compared to the world population, Russia reports a higher death rate than any other country and

this rate has been increasing every year. The percentage by which the mortality rate is growing is

alarming, and reports indicate that most of the deaths occur from preventable causes. Currently,

Russia has a growth rate of 0.19% with the birth rate exceeding death rate with only 0.3%. For

this reason, the Russian population seems to be constant for several years. The death rate is 13.0

deaths/1,000 population while the birth rate is 3.9/1000 population. The infant mortality rate

stands at 7.4 deaths per 1000 live births as on 2014 statistics (Tomkins et al., 2007). The

premature mortality is caused by a change in social factors as well as the economic crisis that hit

the country after Soviet Union dissolution. Alcohol and drug abuse are the primary factors

behind this health issue. Although these factors don’t directly cause the deaths, their effects such

as accidents and violence attributed to the increase in premature mortality.

Although Russia has a life expectancy of 72.5 years, most Russian individuals die a 45-55 years

of age. The probable causes of the deaths are excess drinking, alcohol poisoning and gastric

cancer. To eradicate alcohol, the government came with a policy regulating the alcohol usage

and selling. Also, the government came up with rehabilitation centers where addicts were taken

to reform. This saw the drug usage levels drop from 2005 up to 2011. Due to inadequate funds,

the follow up failed and most centers are not working. This was a good intervention practice but

Health Study in Russia 4

failed. The government should use more profound ways of curbing drug usage like closing

depots, and unlicensed alcohol manufactures.

HIV/AIDS Prevalence

The total number of Russian citizen diagnosed and not yet diagnosed with HIV/AIDS stand at

0.8 to 1.5 million as per the year 2016 experts report. The major setback of this epidemic lies

decades ago where government failed to address this as a critical issue and neglected it while it

was starting. Health professional were advised to treat and diagnose HIV/AIDS as another

disease until when it was hard to hide it anymore. By this time, the disease had taken the best

part of the health sector, and intervention by the government seemed to be futile. AS per today,

this epidemic has caused many lives and with its prevalence in adults being 0.8and 1%. Despite

the success with perpetual intravenous drug users, the disease is spreading fast to general

population and youth are more exposed to it.

The collaboration between the Russian government and the World Bank to combat this epidemic

lasted for only five years. The epidemic requires a long-term project which has been next to

impossible due to the financial constraints and tough economic times in the country

(Amirkhanian 2016). The country needs to understand that this epidemic can wipe the whole

population in a short while and requires a more scientific based approach to combat it.

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References

Amirkhanian, Y. A. (2016). Russia's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Lancet Infectious

Diseases, 16(10), 1121.

Nicholas, M., Townsend, N., Scarborough, P., & Rayner, M. (2014). Cardiovascular disease in

Europe 2014: epidemiological update. European heart journal, 35(42), 2950-2959.

Tomkins, S., Shkolnikov, V., Andreev, E., Kiryanov, N., Leon, D. A., McKee, M., & Saburova,

L. (2007). Identifying the determinants of premature mortality in Russia: overcoming a

methodological challenge. BMC Public Health, 7(1), 343.

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