The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Consequences for Public Health: Medico-Geographical Aspect

The paper consists of a review of the public health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on the assessment of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of the leading disease categories, such as Diseases of the Circulatory System (DCS), Malignant Neoplasms (MN) and External Causes of Morbidity and Mortality (EC) in the Russian Federation. Time series of standardized incidence for each category were examined for the period 2007–2019 (preCOVID-19), and 2020–2023 (COVID-19 and post-COVID-19). The post-COVID trends were compared to those hypothetically expected with no COVID impact. For the majority of the RF regions, upward trends of DCS and MN incidence were detected both in pre-COVID and post-COVID years. In the first year of the pandemic, a decline in morbidity was observed for all categories. The EC incidence trend was decreasing in pre-COVID years, but it increased in the post-COVID period. The median incidence rates of MN in the post-COVID period were lower than expected in most of the country, while those of DCS demonstrated heterogeneous distribution with no clear spatial patterns. A decline in the incidence of all nosoforms in 2020 may not have been related to the actual decrease of morbidity, but rather to the significant reduction of healthcare and diagnostics accessibility, which led to a reduction in the detection of diseases new cases.