Did post-Soviet Russians drink themselves to death?

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame SundaramMOSCOW and KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 2018 (IPS)Although initially obscured by The Economist, among others, the sudden and unprecedented increase in Russian adult male mortality during 1992-1994 is no longer denied. Instead, the debate is now over why?Having advocated ‘shock therapy’, a ‘big bang’, ‘sudden’ or rapid post-Soviet transition, Jeffrey Sachs and others have claimed that the sudden collapse in Russian adult male life expectancy was due to a sudden increase in alcohol consumption, playing into popular foreign images of vodka-binging Russian men. In Russia, vodka is a killer. Credit: Pavol Stracansky/IPSIn fact, the transition to the market economy and democracy in Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics dramatically reduced life expectancy owing to greater stress exacerbated by the nature and impact of the early post-Soviet transition under Boris Yeltsin, especially during his first term. Did post-Soviet Russians drink much more vodka? While alcohol consumption did increase greatly after Gorbachev’s anti-alcoholism campaign (1985-1987) ended, it never reached the highest Soviet level in 1984.While there has been a strong correlation between alcohol consumption and the adult male mortality rate, there have been several periods when per capita alcohol consumption levels and death rates moved in opposing directions. In 2002-2007, for example, death rates from deliberately inflicted (‘external’) causes, includ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Development & Aid Economy & Trade Europe Global Governance Headlines Health TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news