Lyudmila Saburova

<jats:p>The digital technologies used in social communications give rise to new phenomena requiring both innovative measuring and descriptive tools, and new methodological approaches to understanding them. In particular, there is a need for a theoretical-methodological rationale of researches into social communities to account for the specificity of the new type of sociality that digital interactions generate. The article describes a study aimed at constructing a theoretical model of functioning virtual communities of a mobilisation type. The initial phase of the study included the analysis of interaction in virtual communities under the methodology of the 'grounded theory'. The continuous observation of the behaviour of online communities on the VKontakte and Facebook platforms allowed us to identify the most relevant features of interaction hypothesised to influence the dynamics of the communities. Underpinned by analysis of quantitative data having been obtained during the study, the basic hypothesis was formulated as follows: digital technologies both determine the transition to non-linear communications and to the prevalence of horizontal connections, and form the 'weakest' social connections, leading to the depersonalisation of communication, dispersion and relativisation of social capital. Transformable social interactions create a new type of sociality described in the article through the metaphopr of 'lightened sociality'. 'Weaker' linkages between digitalised social actors allow us to say about a 'lightened' sociality since the social capital of participants gets reduced to a symbolic amount, whereas the level of mutual obligations and social liability substantially decreases compared to off-line reality.</jats:p>

BACKGROUND Russia has a high burden of suicide and alcohol-attributable mortality. However there have been few studies of the epidemiology of depression. METHODS The study population was 5077 men and women aged 35-69 years from a cross-sectional population based survey in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Novosibirsk (2015-17). Moderate depression was defined as Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score≥10. Risk factors considered were socio-demographic factors (age, sex, marital status, living alone, education, employment status, financial constraints); health behaviours (smoking, alcohol use) and psycho-social factors (life events and social support). RESULTS After mutual adjustment for all other factors, there was evidence that PHQ-9≥10 was associated with sex (higher in women), financial constraints, employment status, being a non-drinker, problem drinking, smoking, not having enough people to confide in and the number of life events in the past 6 months. Employment status was mo...

Introduction: Hypertension prevalence has increased significantly during the last 30 years. This report is one of serial studies on cardiovascular risk factors in population of Chengdu, in 2008–2009; it is focused on hypertension, and its correlation with other cardiovascular risk factors. Methods: In this community population survey, 5202 male and female residents of Chengdu, aged 40–79 years were stratified clustering sampling. The population statistical parameters, habits, history, physical and laboratory examination findings were investigated in relation to blood pressure. Results: The prevalence of hypertension in this population was 29.4%, (31.0% in men, and 27.8%.in women), Classified by the 1999 WHO/ISH guideline, the prevalence of grade-1, 2, 3, hypertension was 18.4%, 6.8%, and 3.2%, separately. The percentages of each consecutive grade as contributors to total hypertension were 64.79%, 23.94%, and 11.27%. While classified as isolated diastolic hypertension (IDH), isolated...

Background Heavy and hazardous alcohol use is an important driver of the Russian male mortality crisis. Previous studies have addressed the macro-level factors affecting changes in population-level drinking but few have addressed the social and contextual factors associated with individual change in drinking over the life course. There is also a dearth of qualitative research on Russian men’s drinking. Methods This qualitative study was conducted as part of a longitudinal study on men’s alcohol consumption in Izhevsk, Russia, a medium size industrial town. We collected 25 semi-structured biographical interviews with men aged 33–60 years. Consistent with the biographical-narrative interview technique the interviewers asked the respondents to describe events in their lives and any significant changes in drinking over the lifetime. Interview data were coded independently by three researchers using thematic content analysis. Results The drinking narratives describe changes occurring over a period of incredible social and economic instability brought on by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dominant drinking pattern was decreasing binge and frequent drinking as men reached middle age which was precipitated by family building, reductions in drinking with work colleagues, and health concerns. A minority of men described chaotic drinking histories with periods of abstinence and heavy drinking. The results highlight the importance of the blue-collar work environment for conditioning male heavy drinking in young adulthood through a variety of social, normative and structural mechanisms. Bonding with workmates through heavy drinking was seen as an unavoidable and essential part of young men’s social life. Post-Soviet changes associated with marketisation reduced the propensity for workplace drinking but the important social function of male drinking sessions remained. With age peer pressure to drink decreased and the need to perform the role of responsible breadwinner put different behavioural demands on men. For some resisting social pressure to drink became an important site of self-determination and a mark of masculine maturity. Conclusion The study highlights the intersecting influences of broader societal changes, contextual norms, and individual life events on alcohol use trajectories. Over the men’s lifetime the place where masculine identity was asserted shifted from the workplace to the home, which commonly resulted in a reduction in drinking. We contribute to existing theories of Russian male drinking by showing that the performance of age-related social roles influences Russian mens’ drinking patterns, drinking contexts and their attitudes. Further research should be conducted investigating drinking trajectories in Russian men.

Background Little is known about the burden of common mental disorders in Russia despite high levels of suicide and alcohol-related mortality. Here we investigated levels of symptoms, self-reports of ever having received a diagnosis and treatment of anxiety and depression in two Russian cities. Methods The study population was men and women aged 35–69 years old participating in cross-sectional population-based studies in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Novosibirsk (2015–18). Participants completed an interview which included the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scales, questions on whether participants had ever received a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, and health service use in the past year. Participants also reported current medication use and medications were coded in line with the WHO anatomical therapeutic classification (ATC). Depression was defined as PHQ-9 ≥ 10 and Anxiety as GAD-7 ≥ 10. Results Age-standardised prevalence of PHQ-9 ≥ 10 was 10.7% in women and 5.4% in men (GAD-7 ≥ 10 6.2% ...

Russia has one of the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the world. The International Project on Cardiovascular Disease in Russia (IPCDR) was set up to understand the reasons for this. A substantial component of this study was the Know Your Heart Study devoted to characterising the nature and causes of cardiovascular disease in Russia by conducting large cross-sectional surveys in two Russian cities Novosibirsk and Arkhangelsk. The study population was 4542 men and women aged 35-69 years recruited from the general population. Fieldwork took place between 2015-18. There were two study components: 1) a baseline interview to collect information on socio-demographic characteristics and cardiovascular risk factors, usually conducted at home, and 2) a comprehensive health check at a primary care clinic which included detailed examination of the cardiovascular system. In this paper we describe in detail the rationale for, design and conduct of these studies.

Violence has important health effects. The results of exposure to physical violence include, but may not be limited to, death from suicide and homicide. The connection between the experience of assault and risk of death from causes other than homicide and suicide has rarely been examined. We analysed data from the first Izhevsk Family Study (IFS-1), a population-based case-control study of premature mortality in Russian men. Structural equation models were used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) for the association between the proxy report of physical attack in the previous year and mortality. The estimate of the all-cause mortality OR for assault, after adjusting for alcohol use and socio-demographic confounders, was 1.96 (95% confidence interval: 1.71, 3.31). Strong cause-specific associations were found for external causes, but associations were also found for deaths from cardiovascular and alcohol-related deaths. We found that, in our population of working-aged Russian men, there was a...

The massive fluctuations occurring in Russian alcohol-related mortality since the mid-1980s cannot be seen outside of the context of great social and economic change. There is a dearth of qualitative studies about Russian male drinking and especially needed are those that address social processes and individual changes in drinking. Conducted as part of a longitudinal study on men's alcohol consumption in Izhevsk, this qualitative study uses 25 semi-structured biographical interviews with men aged 33-60 years to explore life course variation in drinking. The dominant pattern was decreasing binge and frequent drinking as men reached middle age which was precipitated by family building, reductions in drinking with work colleagues, and health concerns. A minority of men described chaotic drinking histories with periods of abstinence and heavy drinking. The results highlight the importance of the blue-collar work environment for conditioning male heavy drinking in young adulthood thr...

Background In the post-Soviet period, Russian working-age men have suffered unusually high mortality rates. Earlier quantitative work found that part of this is attributable to hazardous and harmful patterns of alcohol consumption, which increased in the period of transition at a time of massive social and economic disruption and uncertainty. However, there has been very little work done to document and understand in detail the downward life trajectories of individual men who died prematurely from alcohol-related conditions. Building on an earlier case-control study, this unique qualitative study investigates the perceived interplay between men's drinking careers, their employment and family history, health and eventual death. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with close relatives (most often the widow) of 19 men who died between 2003 and 2005 aged 25-54 years whose close relatives reported that alcohol contributed to their death. The study was conducted in a typical me...

Background Russia is one of the very few industrialised countries in the world where life expectancy has been declining. Alcohol has been implicated as a major contributor to the rapid fluctuations observed in male life expectancy since 1985 that have been particularly marked among working-age men. One approach to reducing the alcohol problem in Russia is 'brief interventions' which seek to change views of the personal acceptability of excessive drinking and to encourage self-directed behaviour change. There is limited understanding in Russia of the salience and applicability of Motivational Interviewing (MI), a well-defined brief intervention commonly used to target alcohol-related behaviour, but MI may have important potential for success within the Russian context. Methods/Design The study will be an individually randomised two-armed parallel group exploratory trial. The primary hypothesis is that a brief adaptation of MI will be effective in reducing self-reported hazard...

To estimate the prevalence of hazardous drinking and its socio-economic distribution among Russian men. Participants were an age-stratified, population-based random sample of men aged 25-54 years living in Izhevsk, a city in the Urals, Russia. Interviewers administered questionnaires to cohabiting proxy respondents about behavioural indicators of hazardous drinking derived from frequency of hangover, frequency of drinking beverage spirits, episodes in the last year of extended periods of drunkenness during which the participant withdraws from normal life (zapoi), consumption of alcoholic substances not intended to be drunk (surrogates) and socio-economic position. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between socio-economic position and indicators of hazardous drinking in the past year. Of 1750 men, 79% drank spirits and 8% drank surrogates at least sometimes in the past year; 25% drank spirits and 4% drank surrogates at least weekly and 10% had had an episode of zapo...