If compared to the general population people who attempt suicide more often belong to the social groups where social instability and poverty are typical.
Gunnell et al. (1995) investigated the relation between suicide, parasuicidal behavior, and socio-economic issues. They identified a connection between suicide and parasuicidal behavior, while negative socio-economic factor offered nearly complete explanation. Besides, these murders and suicides more often happen in densely populated poor areas (Kennedy et al, 1999). Crawford and Prince (1999) also support these findings. They noticed an increase in the suicide rate among young unemployed men living under severe social deprivation. It also true that the frequency of cocaine or opiate overdose cases is associated with poverty (Marzuk et al, 1997).
Both unemployed men and women demonstrate a higher level of alcohol or substance dependency in case they belong to the unemployed. The social class is a risk factor of death due to alcohol abuse, which is also related to such structural social factors as poverty, disadvantage position and the social class. The rate of alcohol-induced death is higher among men involved in physical labor than among clerks, yet the relative index will depend on the age. Men aged 25–39 and involved in common non-qualified physical labor demonstrate a death rate 10–20 times higher than representatives of the middle class, while among those aged 55–64 the same index is only 2,5–4 times higher if compared to those who are involved in a type of labor requiring special skills (Harrison & Gardiner, 1999).
The relation between the lower socio-economic status and personality disorders is far from being well-investigated. Low family income and insufficient living conditions are prognostic factors for crime among adolescents and adults (based on official and survey data). However, the connection between poverty and crime is a complex and a continuous one. The interrelation between impetuosity and the neighborhood in connection to criminal activity show that impetuosity is higher among residents of poor areas rather than among those residing in better-off ones (Lynam et al, 2000). A Cambridge research into the development of minor delinquency produced data stating that unstable employment at the age of 18 was an important independent predictor of previous conviction history among young men aged 21–25 (Farrington, 1995).
The growing number of researches into the relation between poverty and health indicates that low income combined with unfavorable demographic factors and insufficient external support causes stress and life crisis, which serve risk factors for children and may trigger mental disturbances in them. Children from the poorest families show a 3 times higher rate of mental disturbances than children from more prosperous families. Poverty and disadvantaged social status have strongest connection with insufficient skills in children and their poor academic performance (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).
Kaplan G. A. et al, (2001), after studying the socio-economic status in childhood and the cognitive functioning in adulthood, concluded that a higher socio-economic status in childhood and a higher level of education determine a higher level of cognitive functioning in the period of maturity, while both mothers and fathers, independently, contribute to the development of creative cognitive functioning in their children and their cognitive capacity at older age. Obviously, a better socio-economic status in parents and a higher level of education in children may improve cognitive functioning and reduce the risk of dementia at a later stage of life.
Confused, strict and full of violence upbringing as well as lack of control and poor child-parent attachment will aggravate the poverty effect and worsen other structural factors, when it comes to minor delinquency. A Cambridge research into the evolution of minor criminals poverty was taken as one of the most important predictors for delinquency (Farrington, 1995). It was also shown that, in view of mother’s education and behavior in early childhood, poverty also affected academic performance and delinquency (Pagani et al, 1999). Eyler and Behnke (1999), after studying the effects of most common psychoactive substances in children (on their first and second years of life) who were subjected to that in the prenatal period, concluded that the children living in poverty demonstrated obviously aggravated effects of those substances.
The materials of the WHO show that social inequities may also have an impact on the level of vulnerability to environmental risks and the severity of these risks” impact on health. There have been 4 of such mechanisms demonstrated:
?Mechanism 1. Social determinants correlate with the quality of the environment. Socially disadvantaged groups often live and work under poorer environmental conditions if compared to the general population.
?Mechanism 2. The levels of impact are in a certain dependency on the factors related to social inequity (such as level of knowledge and type of behavior in terms of health). Therefore in case of similar environment disadvantaged groups may be subject to a more intense impact than the population in general.
?Mechanism 3. Factors related to social inequities (such as health status and biological susceptibility) affect the dependency “impact – response”. Given the same level of impact, disadvantaged groups may reveal a higher level of vulnerability to unfavorable consequences for health, e.g. due to synergy of various risk factors.
?Mechanism 4. Social inequities have a direct impact on the end results related to health, which may reveal itself through both environmental and non-environmental mechanisms. However, under similar dependency parameters of “impact – response” disadvantaged groups may reveal a higher level of vulnerability to unfavorable consequences for health due to poorer access to the respective services and reduced capacity to cope with the negative effects. The absolute scale of the consequences can also be higher in disadvantaged groups because of higher prevalence of previously existing health issues (Whitehead and Dahlgren, 2008).
According to most researches representatives of lower socio-economic groups stand a higher vulnerability to negative environmental factors (Braubach M, Fairburn J., 2010; Bolte G, Tamburlini G, Kohlhuber M., 2010).
Gender features of health inequity and the family role
Research conducted all over the world show that gender is another important factor determining health inequity.
The feature typical of Russia is an extremely high death rate among men and an unprecedented gap between the life expectancy among men and women (12–14 years).
This attracts more attention to men’s health in modern Russia, which overshadows the fact that, according to medical statistics and opinion polls, women have been consistently showing higher rates of health issues.
The lower status of health in Russian women – not only compared to Russian men yet also to women in other countries – is also seen from the calculations of the healthy life expectancy. According to the data provided by the leading Russian demographers the huge gap in the healthy life expectancy of the 20-year olds (both Russian men and women) and their Western counterparts (13 years), in men is due to a higher level of death rate (especially in the working age), and in women – due to a lower health status (mostly in the older age) (Масленникова Г. Я., Оганов Р. Г., 2002, 2004).
Actually, the so-called gender paradox, which could be expressed as “women become ill more often while men die earlier”, which is a global tendency, typical of civilized countries at least, has always been of interest to researchers. For a long time this gender paradox has been explained by medical statistics, supporting the fact that men typically suffer from fatal illnesses and fall prey to illnesses that do not reveal well expressed symptomatology; as for women – they typically suffer from acute and chronic, even though less severe conditions.
Thus, a number of