The article compares Russia’s regions on the basis of the current state of affairs in healthcare, environment and public health. The comparison was performed using econometric techniques, namely, cluster analysis. The authors used the statistics obtained from Rosstat’s official publications as initial data. The first parameter – “public health” – uses indicators of life expectancy and the total morbidity rate due to all causes. The second parameter – “environment” – analyzes the indicators of emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere and discharge of contaminated water into waste water. The sphere of healthcare was analyzed with the help of four indicators such as the number of beds per 100,000 population, the number of hospitals, the number of doctors per 10,000 population and the capacity of hospitals. After the analysis, the authors created a scatter plot for each group of indicators, and compiled a table that shows the structural and qualitative developments in the regions during the 2000s. The main research findings are as follows: in 2010 there was a 90% decrease in the number of regions that in 2000 were included in the cluster with the “poor level of development” of people’s health, and the number of regions with the “low level of development” declined by 63%. Most of them moved to the cluster of regions with the “medium level of development”. Many regions (70%) belong to the cluster with the “high level of development” of environmental security and have a cleaner environment in comparison with other regions. Regarding the healthcare sector, its dynamics is bipolar in nature, as in 10 years the number of regions in the clusters with the “good” and “bad” level of development reduced 6–7-fold; and the clusters with the “high” and “low” level of development increased by 2.3 and 1.5 times, respectively
Keywords
regional development, public health, human capital, environment, health care, cluster analysis, regional analysis, econometric analysis