Monday, March 02, 2015


Low Life Expectancy Continues To Plague Former Soviet Countries

"A huge problem with alcohol," is how the report's author describes the situation in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries.
By Eugen Tomiuc

Cardiovascular disease, high infant-mortality rates, infectious diseases, and a decrease in the quality and financing of public health-care systems were the main factors driving the trend, according to an article that appeared last week in "The Lancet," a British medical journal.

The combined effect of a steep increase in alcohol and tobacco consumption, both among working-age people and the younger generation, is the main trigger of cardiovascular disease, the article, "Health and Health Systems in the Commonwealth of Independent States," concluded.


"What's going on? Well, a number of things but one of the key points -- particularly in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the north Slavic states -- [is] alcohol, a huge problem with alcohol. Vodka? Yes, but that's not the main issue, that's not what is killing the majority of the people," McKee said.

"It's the technical alcohols, the surrogate spirits, the aftershave, or the eau de cologne in Russian, and the samogon [homemade alcohol] that's made in the rural areas. Stuff that is actually sold in the clear knowledge that people will drink it [that's] 95 percent ethanol. And [people are] drinking in these binges -- the word 'zapoi' in Russian -- which is not just a binge for an evening, it's a binge for several days," he continued. "A huge problem with alcohol."

Drop In Life Expectancy


Moreover, according to "The Lancet," heavy drinking is related to up to six out of every 10 deaths among working-age men in Russia and one in three among working-age women.






Female life expectancy in most CIS states went up slightly or stayed the same -- the highest being in Belarus: 76 years. Only one country, Ukraine, registered a regression in a woman's life span, from 75 years to 74.


Education, Better Care Needed





McKee noted that "health reforms are in place but health systems still have a long way to go," while health-care services were still "fragmented."

"A key issue in the former Soviet countries [is that] evidence-based clinical practice has a very long way to go, because in the Soviet time, there was a rejection of the concept of randomized controlled trials of evidence-based medicine," McKee added, "the whole idea of science was very ideological, and that is still quite a struggle."

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