Mortality-Migration Interplay Case of Russia after the USSR Boris DenisovVassiliy Vlassov Laboratory of Population Economics and Demography, Department of Economics, Moscow University, Moscow, Russia Interdisciplinary Center for AIDS Research and Training, Saint Petersburg, Russia Moscow Medical Academy, Moscow Russia

What was observed in Russia after the collapse of the USSR? Large fluctuation in mortality Rush of migrants into Russia from former Soviet republics Deterioration in data collection Hypothesis : A part of mortality variation might be explained by incomplete account of migration

Data Rosstat provides data on both migration and mortality Federal AIDS center provides data on annual number of HIV tests performed to foreign citizens arriving to Russia for a period of more that three months There is also a migration administration

Data Quality : Migration low A part of migrants remains unobserved Attempts to correct for undercount Mortality high All deaths are reported In these data we trust

What is a death rate ? e.g., Rosstat publishes per thousand actually it is a number from a range : from to In terms of total population the difference between populations constructed upon lower and upper bounds is 2 mln

Data resumed:

Calculations : number of deaths death rate = population at risk Due to data consideration we believe in the numerator, and we suppose that denominator is a subject to change. Reconsidered death rates are definitely lower, and produce longer life expectancy.

Constraints : Population = only male and only total (no urban/rural distinction) Assumptions : Migration undercount = 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 million total (no urban/rural distinction) Manually constructed permanent age schedule of migrants

Results : One additional (to denumerators) million of population increases the life expectancy by 0.2 year Data quality or completeness of migration count may not be a major cause of observed recent variations in life expectancy However, in (un)certain years they may disturb or hide real direction of mortality development. The year 1994 may be a good example of (many factors’) confounding effect

Discussion : We used national level data for illistration only Regional viewpoint might be more instrumental and as a byproduct We suppose that the level of mortality might be overestimated in all former Soviet republics, which have a significant portion of their citizens residing in Russia, due to double count of deaths (in Russia and at home).

Acknowledgements: A. Sarang, Russian Harm Reduction Network M. Tumanova, Unit of HIV Monitoring, MoH O. Chudinovskikh, Moscow University UNFPA office in Moscow

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