Mobile Global Health Supercourse in the Former

Soviet Union countries

Eugene Shubnikov (Russia), Komil Daburov (Tajikistan), Andrey Troufanov (Russia)

Faina Linkov (USA), Ronald LaPorte (USA)

IEA World Congress of Epidemiology

2011, Scotland

WHO DIAMOND Project

155 Centers

70 Countries

19,212 Children Registered

7.2% of Children

Preventing chronic disease locally(FSU) and globally:

Delivery of prevention information through the

Supercourse

Mobile

Global

Health

FSU

Supercourse

Education and information sharing is important to preventing all forms of

diseases and conditions. 

Mobile

Global

Health

FSU

Supercourse

Moldova 65 73 69

Russia 62 74 68

Turkmenistan 60 67 63

United Kingdom 78 82 80

United States of America 76 81 78

Life expectancy at birth (years)

Male Female Both sexes

2008 2008 2008

Countries

FSU Supercourse Network, 2011

More than 500 registered members

More than 350 lectures From FSU aurthors(English Language page)

Health indices for FSUWe may useYouTube too!

List of more than 250 lectures in Russian language(Russian Language page)

Role of FSU Internet and Mobile PreventionNetwork in improvement Health in FSU

• Networking FSU Public Health specialists via Internet

• Improve prevention through the training of FSU Public Health specialists through Supercourse Library of lectures in Epidemiology, Public Health and Internet - www.pitt.edu/~super1/national/index.htm

• Provide Russian Language Lectures on prevention via FSU Internet Prevention web site – www.pitt.edu/~super1/national/index.htm

Mobile

Global

Health

FSU

Supercourse

Skype Snapshot

Communications in Russia

Communications in Russia 2010

• By June 2010, the number of Internet users in Russia reached 59,7 millions or 43% of total population, offering a unique opportunity to utilize internet pathways for disease prevention in FSU.

• There are about 1,33 cell phones for every one person living in Russia

24

Google Search for Mobile Global Health

Mobile

Global

Health

FSU

Supercourse

Phone in Turkmenistan

• Beeline Uzbekistan

Health status

• It is useful to begin an account of health status developments with a consideration of the Soviet period, as the present health crisis of the Russian Federation has its roots in events that long precede the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The period until 1991

Life expectancy in 1965

64.373.4 74.7

66.873.7

67.3

01020304050607080

Men Women

Russia

France

USA

The health care principles upon which the Soviet health care system was to

be based (Nikolai Semashko):• Government responsibility for health• Universal access to free services• A preventive approach to “social

diseases”• Quality professional care• A close relation between science and

medical practice• Continuity of care between health

promotion, treatment and rehabilitation.

But…

• The diverging paths of Russia and other industrialized nations with respect to health status from the 1960s onward has been attributed to the failure of the Russian health care system to successfully respond to the epidemiological transition.

Why? • The paternalistic Soviet philosophy did not encourage

the development of responsibility of the individual with respect to lifestyle issues that have a major bearing on health (alcohol use, smoking, diet, etc.), a situation exacerbated by the heavy dependence on alcohol sales as a means of circulating currency in a country with little access to consumer goods.

• Soviet medical science was effectively isolated from developments in the West, not only in terms of knowledge of new treatments but also access to pharmaceuticals, technology, and the emerging evidence based medicine movement.

A campaign against alcohol• By the 1980s, the gap between Russia and

Western countries in life expectancy at birth came to about 10 years for men and 6 years for women, mostly due to high death rates among those of working age (6). In the mid-1980s, the government made an attempt to address this problem (9). It was by then generally understood that potentially avoidable human losses were mostly attributable to excess adult age mortality from particular causes such as injuries, accidental poisoning, suicide, homicide, sudden cardiac death, hypertension and other conditions closely related to alcohol abuse and its consequences.

Life expectancy related to Campaign

61.764.9

74.473

404550556065707580

1984 1987

Male

Female

And….

• Russia failed to maintain this record.

• The anti-alcohol campaign not affect the attitude of the majority of Russia’s population towards alcohol.

• By1987 the USSR was no longer able to enforce the anti-alcohol campaign and death rates rapidly resumed their upward trend from 1988 onwards.

What ways we may use for What ways we may use for improve Health in FSU countries?improve Health in FSU countries?

• Improve prevention

• Reach everybody

• Make it inexpensive

Future Steps• We want to marry our work with

those interested in Mobile Technology to build a new discipline called FSU Mobile Global Health. 

• Mobile communications and 

the Internet are among the most dynamic sectors of the economy  in FSU countries. 

Thank you!