Advice to a Moscow children's hospital.

Abstract

ture in the future. While some of these potential problems have already been highlighted,8 the weakening economy is causing a sharp decline in living standards, mass unemployment, and continued dependence on heavily polluting industries. There is no sign that public health problems will decrease. In this environment the need for public health skills has never been greater. We thank Dr Theo Miltenburg of the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, Nijmegen, Netherlands; all the staff at Kaunas Medical Academy who helped us gather information and ideas; and in particular Dr Zilvinas Padaiga and Professor Grabauskas for organising the trip. We also thank Dr Caroline Collier of the Department of Health for sponsoring the visit, North West Thames Regional Health Authority for its support, and Drs M McKee and N Black for their comments on previous drafts of the paper.

Is there epidemiology in Russia?

“…The most prevalent current impressions are that medicine in the former USSR suffers severely from insufficient funding 12-14. Evaluations of the quality of Russian medicine usually were negative,8 12 14-17 despite changes in nearly every aspect of physicians' training11 12 15 and increased exposure to modern treatment options 812 14 18 With few exceptions, evaluations of the Russian scientific literature also were negative,11 14 18 19 but they did not develop systematically the state of medical research.…”