Mortality from external causes and socio-cultural differentiation of the Russian regions

The spatial general patterns of distribution of mortality rates from external causes and a number of socio-demographic indicators for the federal districts of the Russian Federation are explored. The materials of social and medical statistics, presented in the official publications of Rosstat, provided the empirical basis. The group of mortality rates from external causes, in addition to the general indicators, consisted of the mortality rates from road traffic injuries, accidental drowning, suicides and murders. The content of the socio-cultural space of individual administrative regions was assessed by a set of indicators (over 2012), showing the poor state of socio-cultural and spiritual spheres. This group included social (criminality, the number of divorces, the percentage of people born out of wedlock) and medical and demographic indicators (incidence of tuberculosis, syphilis, drug addiction, alcoholism and the abortion rates). The work was carried out in keeping with the regional social and ecological analysis (ecological study). At the first stage of the study, there was used a procedure of comparing and ranking federal districts according to the level of every death rate from external causes and estimation of the correlation index between the rank positions of the regions. The key point of the work was to study the complex polarity between the Central and Far Eastern federal districts. Taking into account all the considered indicators of mortality from external causes the situation in the Far Eastern region looks more unfavorable: the greatest differences were recorded in the death rate from homicides and accounted for 64.9%, the lowest differences in terms of the death rate from road traffic injuries - 11.3%. Differentiation of death rates from external causes along the «West-East» axis assumes the importance of factors of the socio-cultural environment that was formed in the process of historic formation and development of various regions of Russia. The second stage of the study included a correlation analysis of ranking positions of the distribution of indicators for 81 constituent territories of the federation and the clustering of regional data by applying factor analysis. At this stage the indicators of economic development were added to the group of regional indicators under consideration. The combined character of the interregional differentiation of indicators of the problems of the socio-cultural sphere is revealed, in contrast to the indicators of economic development. The opinion is confirmed that the factors of socio-cultural and spiritual content have integral significance in the formation of mortality from violent causes, while the influence of this group of factors should be considered a priority for improving the socio-demographic situation in the regions of Russia.