Cultural anthropology blog


Jordan Chase 
Economic Availability of Alcohol and Alcoholism Incidence Rates in Russia

The objective of this study was to determine the correlation between the affordably and ease of access to vodka to alcoholism in post-soviet Russia. Russia is Russia has one of the highest incidence of alcoholism (alcohol dependence) in Europe. Alcohol morbidity and mortality rates respond directly to price and availability of alcohol. So, the results from this study suggest a reverse relationship between the affordability and  incidence rate. The findings point to the complex relationship between alcohol affordability and long-term alcohol related outcomes. The data gathered from 1991 to 2015 does not support the claim that the affordability of vodka causes increased incident rates. from 2003-2015 the incident rate steadily decreased while the affordability increased completely contradicting previous findings. however the data collected does not take into account the minimum price of vodka law that was set in place in 2011 and the doubled taxes of vodka.  I believe that that initially the rising affordability did cause higher incident rates, but the added taxes caused vodka to become more valued by the consumer and considered not something that can be used 'willy nilly' thus lowering the incident rate while maintaining its affordability. The article is very interesting and its intriguing to compare and contrast how similar Russian and American drinking habits are and how they are different from the rest of Europe and the world. 

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