Life expectancy in Russia's regions

Life expectancy at birth is used as a comprehensive indicator of public health and socioeconomic development. The impact of the quality of healthcare, reginal economic development and people’s welfare on life expectancy at birth in Russia requires more detailed and system-wide scientific substantiation at the level of RF constituent entities. The novelty of the study consists in identifying the impact of various factors on the increase in life expectancy by constructing panel vector autoregressions in groups of Russian regions identified with the help of clustering and showing similar rates of increase in life expectancy. The results of the obtained models in the context of the formed cluster demonstrate that the increase in life expectancy in all clusters correlates with the positive dynamics of economic development in the region and the increase in average per capita income. Factors contributing to the organization of the healthcare system in the regional context are poorly related to fife expectancy indicator due to the underfunding of this area, orientation toward a decrease in the provision of beds in hospitals due to the optimization of the healthcare system and the cumulative nature of the impact. The conclusions obtained in the course of our study can be used in the practice of managing the quality of life and socio-economic development in Russia’s regions.