Russia : an unprecedented sanitary Crisis. While life expectancy was continuously increasing in most European countries during the last decades, progress has been stopped in some Eastern European countries since the mid-60s. Cardiovascular diseases play a major part in these contrasting trends. Mortality due to these conditions is decreasing in the Western part of Europe while it has dramatically increased on the Eastern side. The case of the republics of the former USSR is specially worrying. After a short period of improvement, due to the anti-alcoholic campaign implemented by Mikhail Gorbatchev, a sudden worsening of the health situation occurred in the last decade. Studying trends in mortality by cause and inequalities inside Russia highlights several determinants which play a role in the long-term trends as well as in the recent fluctuations. The importance of alcohol abuse, tobacco consumption, health system, nutrition and more generally speaking the socio-economic crisis and induced stress is debated. Health future of Russia remains very uncertain, while some other ex-communist countries (Czech republic, Poland, Hungary) seem to enter a new step of progress.
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Meslé et al. (2000) studied this question.