Social Inequalities in Health and Health Risk Behaviour in Russia:trends of smoking and alcohol consumption in 1994–2009

Limited research has examined the dynamics of social inequalities in health and the types of health risky behaviors. The article attempts to reveal the educative and income di?erences in self- assessment of health, alcohol and tobacco consumption, simultaneously studying the patterns of change of these di?erences in the post-soviet Russia.Data were obtained from the mass-survey, conducted in the frames of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), from the second round of annual polls held during 1994–2009 (excluding 1997), the age of the respondents being 26–70 years.The results show the link between self-assessment of health and position in social hierarchy: self- reported health of lower income and educational strata representatives varies signi?cantly of that of more wealthy and well-educated respondents. The e?ects of both the substantial economic growth of the decade of 2000, and the development of the medical services have been dramatically declined by the expansive alcohol and tobacco consumption in men and women of di?erent social strata. However this augmentation proved being more harmful to the less privileged groups.