Health of the older age population (on the example of the Komi Republic)

The article is devoted to assessment of changes in the health status of the older age people within the period of 2013–2023. Relevance of the study is due to the dynamics of life expectancy of the Russian population in recent years, which caused the acceleration and change in the nature of demographic aging, and the goals set in the field of life expectancy. The information base is provided by the results of three authorial sociological surveys «Problems of the third age», conducted on the territory of the Komi Republic with the interval of five years. The study has revealed a positive influence of the medical examination on the awareness of the older age population about their health; increasing responsibility of older people for it, strengthening the individual component of orientation to active, healthy lifestyle, increased physical activity. Older people have traditionally been more critical of assessing their own health than of psychological well-being, with the gap between the surveys widening that also indicates the growing responsibility of older age people for health. Distribution of responses in three surveys on prevalence of major chronic disease risk factors as well as the medical examination results shows the significant importance for older people’s health of high levels of blood pressure, overweight and unhealthy diets. In 2023 health status was assessed to be significantly higher than in the previous surveys. Further improvement of healthy life expectancy is linked to both development of health care and the activation of older age people, including in employment.