HEALTHCARE AS A FACTOR OF SOCIAL WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE

Shchanina Ekaterina Vladimirovna, Candidate of sociological sciences, associate professor, sub-department of sociology and human resource management, Penza State University (40 Krasnaya street, Penza, Russia), shchanina@mail.ru

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Background. During the last decades there has been an increase of percentage of elderly people in many countries, including Russia. By the basic demographic indicators and age structure the Penza region reflects all main trends of the processes of aging and growth of elderly people percentage in the general amount of Russian population. Development of such processes has revealed many social problems of the elderly generation; there has been a significant decrease in health and life quality of elderly people. This fact demands the study of the elderly people’s role in society, as well as their social well-being and factors influencing thereof. The aim of the article is to analyze the influence of health condition on well-being of elderly people in the odern Russian society.
Materials and methods. Realization of the research tasks was achieved on the basis of the analysis of the sociological survey results. The survey was conducted among the elderly people of Penza region. A special place in the survey is taken by the analysis of the elderly people’s health condition. For methodological substantiation the author used the activity approach. The main research method was the questionairre.
Results. The research of elderly people’s health condition allowed to reveal that the problems, associated with the given subject matter, are highlighted regardless of person’s self-appraisal of his/her health, gender, marital status, place of living.
Conclusions. The research of the influence of elderly people’s health on their well-being allows to conclude that the continuous increase of percentage of people over the able-bodied age in the population structure forces to pay more attention to the problems associated with organization of services on elderly people’s health promotion and improvement. The work in the said field should be of complex sociomedical nature and devoted to promotion and preservation pf physical and psychological health of people in the said period of their life.

elderly people, pensioners, self-appraisal of health condition, social well-being.

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