Activity and strategies for caring for the health of the elderly: urban and rural context

• Published in: Science. Culture. Society
• Main Author: Konstantin A. Galkin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology 2023
• Subjects: elderly people; subjective health; elderly health; active longevity; urban; rural; Sociology (General); HM401-1281; karelia*; Republic of Karelia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.19181/nko.2023.29.1.10; https://doaj.org/article/9f589e94e46f4711ad86e87dd294de51

Modern Russia, like most European countries, is a state where the population is actively aging. At the same time, the issues of organizing care for the elderly, as well as the issues of organizing care for the elderly, are becoming increasingly important for modern Russian social policy. The article presents the results of a qualitative study conducted in the villages of the Republic of Karelia and in the city of St. Petersburg. A total of 40 semi-structured interviews were collected (n=40). In the framework of this study, we consider caring for the subjective health of older people as one of the important criteria for the development of active longevity policy in Russia. The main task of the study, in this regard, is to find out how the elderly themselves take care of their subjective health within various territories. The main research question is the question of how care for their subjective health is formed in older people. The results of the study confirm the presence of the specifics of caring for their subjective health, depending on the different locations where the elderly live. The main problem for elderly people living in rural areas is the exclusion of medical and social services, which actualizes the search for alternative treatment options for diseases. For the elderly in a large city, it is important to turn to institutional treatment providers as the only and non-alternative sources of care and a guideline for turning to such providers in the treatment of various diseases.