Factory medicine in the soviet defense industry during world war II

Abstract

World War II saw a marked deterioration in the health of the USSR's civilian population. A much smaller civilian health care apparatus had to deal with a population at greater risk of morbidity and death due to malnutrition, hazardous working conditions, and the general breakdown of urban sanitation and hygiene. With scarce resources at its disposal the regime focused its attention on workers in the defense industry. Sickness rates among this group doubled compared to the prewar period. Unable to eliminate the basic causes of illness and accidents, the regime attempted to curb sickness absence by pressuring doctors not to issue sick notes. The move proved counterproductive. Sickness absence did not decline. It only began to subside when the country's main public health problem-hunger-abated towards the end of 1944.