ETHNIC DIFFERENTIATION OF MORTALITY, LIFE EXPECTANCY AND HEALTH IN LATVIA AT THE BEGINNING OF 21ST CENTURY

Ethnic origin of individuals is among the variables used in socio-demographic analysis in Latvia. Nevertheless, not so many studies have explored mortality, life expectancy and health in relation to ethnicity. Emerging literature in many countries on ethnicity and health contains a number of highly debated topics, with researchers disagreeing on terminology, focus, and approach. This paper is in line with this. During the Soviet period, only in the time of Gorbachev's reforms, there appeared evidence of existing ethnic inequalities in mortality in the former USSR. Studies on ethnic inequalities in mortality and life expectancy advanced in Latvia, after the country regained independence. The scope for analysis was enlarged after population censuses were organised in 2000 and 2011. Data of censuses were used for specifying data on population numbers and studies in socio-demographic differentials among subgroups of the population. The aim of this study is to analyse differences in mortality, life expectancy and health between the two largest ethnic groups in Latvia - Latvians and Russians - at the beginning of 21st century. Age-specific and age-cause-specific death rates, life tables and standardized death rates for Latvians and Russians by sex and urban-rural residence were calculated in the time period of four years around population censuses. Ethnic differentiation in self-assessed health is analysed based on FINBALT survey data and other health studies. Ethnic differentiation in health, mortality and life expectancy is determined by health behaviour and gaps between sub-groups of the population concerning beginning and entering different phases of epidemiologic transition. More detailed analysis by use of linkage of vital events with individual population census data could clarify obtained results from cross-sectional analysis.