Dynamics of Russians’ Health Status in 2003–2018: The Relationship Between Objective and Subjective Characteristics

Abstract

The article uses data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) from 2003–2018 to analyze the dynamics of the health status of Russians, determined through subjective and objective characteristics. It is shown that, regardless of the chosen indicator, relatively few Russians currently have a good health, and the proportion of people without diagnosed diseases and those who assess their health as good does not differ much. Analysis of the dynamics of various health characteristics has shown that against the background of a decrease in the share of Russians without diagnosed health problems, the number of people with positive self-assessments of their health has increased. However, this growth appeared in the period of 2003–2013, and then stopped. Results of the multinomial regression model demonstrate that having diagnosed diseases leads to a downward bias in self-assessments of individual’s health, the degree of which depends on the nature of the disease. However, the complete absence of such diseases does not mean that an individual evaluates his health as good, since several socioeconomic and demographic factors, including psycho-emotional state, also have a significant impact on this self-assessment of health. The article also shows that objective and subjective health characteristics are associated with the self-care practices, which, although they have become somewhat more popular in the period of 2003–2018, still are used only by a minority of Russians, even among young people.

Keywords

• public health
• self-care behaviour
• healthy life
• health status dynamic