Social health of the Russian society: trends and problems

The article presents the main findings of the ongoing research into social health that has been carried out by ISEDT RAS since 2010. The author substantiates the relevance of studying this issue at the modern stage of social development, and provides the classification of social health criteria based on the official statistics and public opinion polls. He comes to the conclusion that the key indicators of social health reflect the general dynamics of social development; that is why the level of social health can be used to evaluate public administration efficiency. The article shows that since 2000 there has been a decline in the main statistical indicators of social health (rate of suicide, murder, mental disorders, etc.); it proves that the Russians haveadapted to the new living conditions after the collapse of the USSR and the crises of 1991 and 1998. At the same time the latent problems of social atomism, dissociation of the population still remain; there are signs of psychological well-being instability (the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety, depression and neurosis among the population remains relatively high). With the aim to preserve and strengthen the positive trends in social health, the author proposes to enhance the role of scientific community as a mediator between the state and the society, to implement economic measures for maintaining the standard of living and quality of life of the population, to increase the efficiency of interaction between the society, authorities and the media, as well as the efficiency of public administration at the regional and municipal levels.