Health in Russia

Health in Russia deteriorated rapidly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and particularly for men, as a result of social and economic changes.

[1] The Human Rights Measurement Initiative[2] finds that Russia is able to fulfil 78.0% of the requirements for basic health, in relation to Russian income levels.

[8] The biggest factor contributing to this relatively low life expectancy for males is a high mortality rate among working-age males from preventable causes (e.g., alcohol poisoning, stress, smoking, traffic accidents, violent crimes)[citation needed].

[citation needed] As a result of the large difference in life expectancy between men and women (the greatest in the world), the gender imbalance remains to this day and there are 0.859 males for every female in Russia.

Since the Soviet collapse, there has been a dramatic rise in both cases of and deaths from tuberculosis, with the disease being particularly widespread amongst prison inmates.

[16] HIV/AIDS, virtually non-existent in the Soviet era, rapidly spread following the collapse, mainly through the explosive growth of intravenous drug use.

[18][20] In April 2006, the State Council met with the Russian President to set goals for developing a strategy for responding to AIDS.

This involved improving coordination, through the creation of a high-level multisectoral governmental commission on AIDS; and establishing a unified monitoring and evaluation system.

[24] Climate change has the potential to affect human health in several ways, both directly and indirectly, through for example, extreme heatwaves, fires, floods or insect-borne diseases.

The predicted increases in average annual temperatures in most parts of Russia, especially the western and south-western regions, imply more frequent extreme heatwaves and forest fires.

In addition, during the heatwave there were 33 consecutive days of temperatures above 30 °C in the city, increasing the incidence of heat-related deaths and health problems, and leading to forest fires.

[26] The heatwave and wildfires of 2010 in Russia resulted in around 14,000 heat and air-pollution related deaths, as well as around 25% crop failure that year, more than 10,000 km2 of burned area and around 15 billion US dollars of economic losses.

[30] In the Moscow region, the onset of higher average daily temperatures early on in the year has already led to a rapid increase in malaria cases.

[25] Sandfly-borne diseases, such as Leishmaniasis, could also expand in Europe and Russia as a result of climate change and increased average temperatures making transmission suitable in northern latitudes.