Pergamon World Development Vol. 26, No. 11, pp. 1977-1993, 1998 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0305-750X/98/$ - see front matter PII: s0305-750x(98)00099-0 Monitoring the Economic Transition in the Russian Federation and its Implications for the Demographic Crisis - the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey NAMVAR ZOHOORI, THOMAS A. MROZ, BARRY POPKIN, ELENA GLINSKAYA, MICHAEL LOKSHIN and DOMINIC MANCINI zyxwvutsrqponm University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, U.S.A. POLINA KOZYREVA and MIKHAIL KOSOLAPOV Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia and MICHAEL SWAFFORD” Paragon Research International, Nashville, TN, U.S.A. Summary. - Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, we provide information regarding changes in individual and household economic indicators, as well as alcohol consumption and nutritional status in Russia during 1992-96. During this period, there have been declines in income and expenditure, and substantial increases in the prevalence of poverty. At the same time, per capita alcohol consumption has risen significantly, as has the prevalence of obesity. We discuss the significance of these findings within the context of the current mortality crisis in Russia. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words - Europe, Russia, privatization, economic transformation, safety net, mortality crisis, alcohol consumption 1. INTRODUCTION The economic reforms introduced in the Russian Federation since 1992.have led to vast and dramatic changes in the Russian economy. These changes can be expected to affect not only individual and household income, expenditure and other economic indicators, but also many social and behavioral variables that have an *Data collection funding for the Round 1 and part of Round 2 of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) was provided by the World Bank. The US Agency for International Development provided funding for Round 5 and parts of Rounds 3 and 4. Additional funding for file creation has come from the National Institutes of Health (1 ROlHD30880), for collaborative project development from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9223326), and considerable support has come from the Carolina Population Center, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This was a collaborative project of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), the Goskomstat, the Russian’ Center \ of Preventive Medicine (RCPM), and the Russian Institute of impact on the health and well-being of the Russian population. The mortality crisis and the declines in life-expectancy experienced in Russia during the 1990s are ostensibly the results of such forces exerting their influence upon the Russian population. Before now, however, no systematic and nationally representative studies or data have been available from Russia to Sociology. Key collaborators of the authors in this survey are: Barbara Entwisle and Lenore Kohlmeier, UNC-CH; Alexander Nikolaevitch Ivanov and Igor Ivanovitch Dmitrichev, Goskomstat; Svetlana Shalnova and Alexander Deev, RCPM; Alexander Baturin and Arseni Martinchik, Russian Institute of Nutrition. Leslie Kish and Steve Heeringa of the University of Michigan were the senior US sampling researchers for Phase 2 and William Kalsbeek, UNC-CH. was the leading sampling statistician for Phase 1. A number of persons have provided important assistance in this work. Most important have been Karin Gleiter, Laura Kline, and David Robinson, all at the Carolina Popula- tion Center, for analysis of the Russian data. Frances Dancy assisted with support in administrative matters. We thank them all. 1977