Topical Issues of Strategic Planning and Audit in Modern Russia.

The article analyzes the state of strategic planning and audit in the Russian Federation. There is a low level of implementation of the country's main strategic documents, which is due to the insufficient realism of their goals. In turn, the shortcomings of strategic documents are largely a consequence of the lack of regulatory rulemaking and the closed nature of the procedure for their development.

How to Ensure Fiscal Sustainability in Russia.

The COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis aggravated risks to long-term fiscal stability in Russia. The article analyzes why compliance with the fiscal rule prevents us from curbing these risks, and the way in which construction of this rule should be modified to improve its efficiency. It makes a strong case for system-based fiscal consolidation to enhance fiscal stability and presents options for optimization of spending and tax increases.

Labour market status and depression in Russia: A longitudinal study, 2011-2017.

Aims: This is the first longitudinal study to examine the relationship between depression and the labour market in Russia. Using data from 2011 to 2017, we identify the impact that not being in employment has on mental distress, and we explore the mechanism underlying the observed association.

Methods: Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - Higher School of Economics, we employ random-effects regression models to estimate the impact of employment conditions on the likelihood of reporting mental distress in Russia.

Interests, Bias, and Consensus in Science and Regulation.

Scientists are human. As such, they are prone to bias based on political and economic interests. While conflicts of interest are usually associated with private funding, research funded by public sources is also subject to special interests and therefore prone to bias.

Ethics of Adoption and Use of the Linear No-Threshold Model.

The linear no-threshold (LNT) model of ionizing radiation-induced cancer assumes that every increment of radiation dose, no matter how small, constitutes an increased cancer risk for humans. Linear no-threshold is presently the most widely applied model for radiation risk assessment. As such, it imposes very heavy burden on the society in both economic and human terms.

Attitudes to reform: Could a cooperative health insurance scheme work in Russia?

As for all health systems, in Russia, the demand for medical care is greater than its health system is able to guarantee the supply of. In this context, removing services from the state guaranteed package is an option that is receiving serious consideration. In this paper, we examine the attitudes of the Russian population to such a reform.

Convergence or Divergence? Life Expectancy Patterns in Post-communist Countries, 1959-2010.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union experienced an unanticipated stagnation in the process of mortality reduction that was accelerating in the west. This was followed by even starker fluctuations and overall declines in life expectancy during the 1980s and 1990s. We identify statistically the extent to which, since the 1990s, the countries of the post-communist region have converged as a group towards other regional or cross-regional geopolitical blocks, or whether there are now multiple steady-states ('convergence clubs') emerging among these countries.

The effect of chronic conditions and multi-morbidity on self-assessed health in Russia.

Aims: Chronic disorders, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the leading cause of mortality globally, representing 68% of all recorded deaths. The incidence of chronic disease and multiple chronic disease is rising across the world, but relatively little is known about the impact of multi-morbidities on the life experiences of those individuals who encounter them. In this paper, we examine and quantify the relationship between chronic illness, multi-morbidity and the individual self-assessed health of the Russian population using individual-level Russian data and a novel quantitative technique.

Reforming voluntary drug insurance in Russian healthcare: does social solidarity matter?

With low take-up of both private health insurance and the existing public drug reimbursement scheme, it is thought that less than 5% of the Russian population have access to free outpatient drug treatment. This represents a major policy challenge for a country grappling with reforms of its healthcare system and experiencing low or no economic growth and significant associated reductions in spending on social services. In this paper, we draw on data from a 2011 Levada-Center survey to examine the attitudes and social solidarity of the Russian population towards drug policies in general and towards the introduction of a proposed voluntary drug insurance system in particular.