Health-related behavior of economically active Russians: models and dynamics

The paper defines the characteristic features of health-related behavior typical of economically active Russians, which is done based on the results of Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS). It is shown that Rus sians are not involved into active practices of health preservation - most of them do not do any physical exer-cises, half of the respondents hardly have three meals per day, one third of the respondents smoke. Self-medication is widespread among economically active population - most of those who had had health prob-lems during last 30 days on the day of the survey had not attended the doctor. The analysis of health-related behaviors from 2006 to 2016 shows the lack of dynamics. The only changes that have been revealed are the re-duction in the number of smokers (from 43 % in 2006 to 34 % in 2016) and increase in the number of those who do physical exercises at least once a week (from 21 % in 2006 to 32 % in 2016). The percentage of re-spondents that prefer self-medication and avoid preventive medical examinations did not change significantly. The authors used cluster analysis as a method to identify types of health-related behavior among economically active population in Russia. As a result, four groups differing by the type of health-related behavior were re-vealed: those demonstrating «high interest in health protection», «moderate interest in health protection», «in-consistent behavior», «passive behavior» and «destructive (risk) behavior». Only fifth part of the respondents can be associated with high or moderate interest in health protection. The authors proved that risk health-related behavior is typical of men, while passive health-related behavior - of women. People with low socio-economic status also tend to such types of behaviors.