The practices of maintaining the health of Russian pensioners. Structure and models

Abstract

Based on the data of the all-Russian survey of pensioners, the article considers an approach to determining the structure and model of health maintenance practices. The analysis and construction of a model of health maintenance is carried out through the prism of four practices related to the “stereotypical type of healthy lifestyle”: proper (rational) nutrition; physical culture, sports; giving up bad habits; preventive medical examination. For a more visual demonstration are considered the models of behavior of all Russian pensioners and a special group of pensioners – those who believe that “we ourselves” are responsible for the state of their health. The results indicate the dominance of a socially approved position in the responses, which is poorly correlated with real behavior and efforts to maintain health. Awareness of responsibility for their own health does not encourage Russian pensioners to take active actions to maintain it. The model of maintaining health in the group of “consciously caring” pensioners “” differs little from the models of maintaining the health of pensioners in general. It is represented mainly by “1st and 2nd practice models”, in the structure of which the leading position is occupied by the practice of giving up smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The proposed approach can allow us not only to understand which model of health maintenance dominates in a particular group, but also to estimate the completeness of the use of practices and the intensity of health care by individuals.