70,000 Russians Suffered ‘Deaths of Despair’ in 2022, ‘To Be Precise’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 3 – Demographers call deaths from drugs, suicide and alcohol “deaths of despair” because these are linked with social and economic problems. In 2022, the last year for which figures are available, 70,000 Russians suffered from these, according to the ‘To Be Precise’ research site.

            Deaths of this kind exceeded those from heart attacks (50,000), from transportation accidents (16,000), and HIV/AIDS (16,000) and are comparable with those from respiratory diseases (82,000), the site says (tochno.st/materials/alkogol-narkotiki-i-samoubiistva-v-kakix-regionax-rossiiane-cashhe-vsego-umiraiut-ot-otcaianiia-reiting-esli-byt-tocnym).

            To Be Precise presents a grab bag of data about these deaths from despair which say a great deal about one of the more important factors behind the rise in mortality rates across the Russian Federation (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/mortality-rates-rising-across-russia.html).

            Among the most interesting of these are the following:

·       Over the last decade, mortality from alcohol and suicides in Russia has fallen but it is risen from drug use.

·       The Russian Far East remains at the top of the rankings for deaths from all these factors.

·       For Russia as a whole, 62 percent of deaths from despair come from alcohol, 23 percent for suicides and 16 percent from drug abuse. But there are large differences in this pattern between Moscow where drug abuse is much higher and rural areas where it is quite low.

·       Officials in some regions are underreporting deaths from despair to avoid criticism locally and from Moscow.

·       The Muslim republics have the lowest level of deaths from despair because of low levels of alcohol consumption; but Ingushetia, one of their number. More than 80 percent of the deaths of this kind come from drug abuse.

·       Alcohol and suicides are the leading causes of deaths of despair in rural areas, the result of poverty, lack of medical facilities and the use of samogon and surrogates.

·       Russian men die from despair at more than more times the rate as do Russian women.

·       Deaths from drug abuse are hitting ever older cohorts.