Russia Gets Poor Marks for Wellbeing of its Elderly.
WASHINGTON, September 30 (by Karin Zeitvogel for RIA Novosti) - Russia earns low marks on a global index that rates countries by the quality of life and wellbeing of their old folk, ranking 78th out of 91 countries in the first-ever Global AgeWatch Index released Monday.
The index, which lists Sweden at number one and Afghanistan at rock bottom, ranks countries’ performances in the domains of income security; health status, including psychological wellbeing and life expectancy; employment and education; and what’s called the “enabling environment,” which measures how socially connected older people feel, whether they have easy access to transportation, how safe they feel, and their level of civic freedoms.
It was on the enabling environment that Russia stumbled badly, ranking 90th out of 91 countries, with only Pakistan scoring worse, Silvia Stefanoni, chief executive of senior citizens’ advocacy group HelpAge International, which put together the index with support from the United Nations Fund for Population and Development (UNFPA), told RIA Novosti.
In particular, social connections – whether older people felt they could rely on a friend or relative, for example, if they had a problem – “scored very low in Russia,” Stefanoni said, adding that Russia also received below-average marks for health status, ranking 78th out of 91.
The poor health ranking was due largely to the fact that life expectancy in Russia is only 69, or 15 years less than what the index calls “the current norm,” and healthy life expectancy, or the number of years a person can expect to live without disability or severe illness, is only 58 years in Russia.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20131001/183866689/Russia-Gets-Poor-Marks-for-Wellbeing-of-its-Elderly-Report.html
The link to "index" in the second para. goes to the full report by HelpAge International's Global AgeWatch Index in a pdf : https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgeydlst4z8g5pf/Global%20Summary.pdf
US comes 7th and UK 13th on the index.
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