Tag "alcohol"

A large number of deaths in a mass tragedy may not be important enough for the event to become the top news story of the day: its perceived saliency depends on whether it is part of the broader media agenda, according to a study of Russian media coverage of three different tragedies which occurred on the same day in December 2016, namely the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, a mass poisoning by alcohol-containing hawthorn lotion in Irkutsk and a terrorist attack in Berlin.

Widespread consumption of toxic surrogate alcohols is not the only cause of lethal alcohol poisoning in Russia; even more important may be the country’s ‘culture of drinking'. This habit of drinking large quantities of strong spirits – such as vodka, brandy or whiskey – often leads to dangerous intoxication and early death.

Over the next 20 years, death rates among working age Russian men are expected to drop by a third due to a change in alcohol consumption preferences – namely, the decreasing popularity of vodka, according to Yevgeny Yakovlev, Assistant Professor at the HSE Department of Applied Economics, and Lorenz Kueng, Assistant Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.