Disability incidence and official health status transitions in Russia

This paper examines determinants of being disabled in Russia, along with the probability of moving from one disability status to another, using data from 1994 through 2005 from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. Results from multinomial probit regressions indicate that disability risk rises sharply with age, declines with income and self-reported good health, and is lower for women. Neither smoking nor drinking alcohol increases either the risk of being or becoming disabled. Recovery – health status improvement – improves with household size. Misclassification or measurement error is important: a surprisingly large proportion of “incurably” disabled Russians do in fact recover.