Elena Avetova

Project description

Understanding Socioeconomic Health Disparities in post-Communist Countries

The political, economic and social changes that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (FSU) have undergone since the beginning of transition at the early 1990s have been accompanied by changes in the health status of the main nations in the region. A comprehensive approach is required to understand how socioeconomic factors at individual as well as societal levels influence health in CEE and FSU countries. Thus, a conceptual model has been developed to guide the empirical work of this study in relation to its main objectives, which are (1) to investigate the differences in health status between social groups within and between  the 13 post-communist countries of CEE and FSU, (2) to identify the main individual-level and societal-level influences on health in these countries which have undergone two decades of socioeconomic and political transition, and (3) to determine whether the established influences differ between the countries. The data have been treated as baseline data that could be used to monitor the trends in health status in the respective countries in the future.

Supervisors: Jane Fielding and Sarah Earthy