Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting

Staff Members of the Department:

	Dmytro Heorhiiovych Shushpanov, Head of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, Guarantor of the Educational and Scientific Programme “Economics”
	Oleksandr Mykolaiovych Hladun, Chief Research Fellow of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Senior Research Fellow, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
	Nataliia Mykhailivna Levchuk, Chief Research Fellow, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Senior Research Fellow
	Nataliia Oleksandrivna Rynhach, Chief Research Fellow, Doctor of Sciences in Public Administration, Professor
	Maryna Volodymyrivna Puhachova, Chief Research Fellow of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Senior Research Fellow
	Pavlo Yevhenovych Shevchuk, Leading Research Fellow, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Senior Research Fellow
	Oleksandr Petrovych Korniichuk, Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting; Candidate of Economic Sciences; Senior Research Fellow; Master of Public Administration in Healthcare
	Orest Yevhenovych Tisetskyi, Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting; Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor
	Iryna Ivanivna Pronina, Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Demographic Modelling and Forecasting; Candidate of Economic Sciences
	Vita Volodymyrivna Khvalynska, Chief Economist

Main Research Areas of the Department

Demographic forecasting, estimation of population size and structure, and their analysis and description.
Comprehensive reconstruction of long-term series of demographic dynamics of the population of Ukraine for the period 1795–2013.
Analysis of trends in demographic processes in Ukraine in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries.
Research on demographic losses caused by social catastrophes in Ukraine: the famine of 1921–1923, the Holodomor, the Second World War, the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014–2021, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research on demographic losses caused by social catastrophes in other countries: the Great Famine in Ireland, the famine of 1932–1933 in the Russian Federation, the former Soviet republics during the Second World War, and the Balkan countries; and comparative analysis of these losses with the demographic losses of Ukraine.
Assessment of the impact of social crises on the health status and mortality level of the population in Ukraine.
Research on population mortality, in particular its sex- and age-specific differentiation and changes in the structure of causes of death. Transformation of mortality in Ukraine in the context of social modernization and the epidemiological transition.
Mortality and life expectancy in the regional dimension: a) dynamics and changes in population mortality in major Ukrainian cities; b) convergence and divergence of life expectancy among regions (oblasts); c) spatial analysis of cause-specific mortality dynamics at the level of administrative districts.
Research on short- and long-term trends in life expectancy, including the cohort dimension. Assessment of interindividual inequality in the expected life expectancy of generations. Construction of life tables.
Analysis of population health: gender, age, regional, and other characteristics. Identification of threats to Ukraine’s national security related to health.
Assessment of the socio-economic determinants of population health. Analysis of population morbidity by classes of diseases, causes, and socio-demographic characteristics.
Public health: assessment of the impact of socio-economic and political crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war on the demographic situation and public health.
Development of directions and measures of demographic policy and healthcare policy. Use of electronic information resources for demographic research; systems of statistical monitoring and socio-demographic policy.
Multidimensional analysis in socio-demographic research.
Sociological research.

Scientific Results of the Department’s Activities

a methodology was developed and the reconstruction of Ukraine’s demographic dynamics for the period 1795–2013 was carried out as an information basis for in-depth cross-sectional and cohort analysis of demographic processes in Ukraine and the study of their instability. The dynamics of population size and the trends of demographic processes in Ukraine from the mid-nineteenth to the beginning of the twenty-first century were linked to the phenomenon of demographic waves as a manifestation of instability, and their consequences for human development were clarified. On the basis of the reconstruction of demographic dynamics, the main socio-demographic events that led to the contemporary sex and age structure were analysed;
National Demographic Forecasts were developed in 2020, 2023, and 2024;
a new methodology was developed for estimating Ukraine’s demographic losses resulting from the Holodomor of 1932–1933, based on detailed statistical data and modern methods of demographic-statistical analysis, which makes it possible to reconstruct the annual key parameters of Ukraine’s demographic dynamics in the inter-censal period between 1926 and 1939;
for the first time, on the basis of the developed methodology, an estimate was made of Ukraine’s demographic losses from the Holodomor in 1932–1934 at the oblast and district levels within the administrative-territorial division of that time. The results obtained were used in the development of a separate demographic module of the Electronic Atlas of the Holodomor, developed by Harvard University as part of the project “MAPA: Digital Atlas of Ukraine”;
on the basis of the reconstruction of the demographic dynamics of Ukraine and Russia in 1926–1939 and of their regions, an assessment and comparative analysis of losses due to excess mortality from the famine of 1932–1934 were carried out for the first time between the countries not only at the national but also at the regional level;
a classification of the methods used by researchers in calculating Holodomor losses was carried out, together with an analysis of the resulting quantitative estimates of excess mortality losses. On the basis of scenario-based demographic calculations, it was demonstrated that excess mortality losses in Ukraine as a result of the Holodomor could not have amounted to seven million or more persons;
for the first time, a methodology was developed and a scientific assessment of population demographic losses was carried out for Ukraine as a whole, as well as for seven oblasts and the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, as a result of the famine of 1921–1923;
the demographic losses of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as a result of the Second World War were estimated;
for the first time, demographic losses resulting from the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people and other nationalities from Crimea in 1944 were estimated;
intergenerational differentiation in the mortality of the population of Ukraine and shifts in age-specific mortality among the birth cohorts of 1850–1923 were identified, on the basis of which the most disadvantaged and affected cohorts were determined in the context of the impact of twentieth-century social catastrophes on the viability of generations;
the main trends of interregional inequality in life expectancy in Ukraine in the contemporary period were studied; shifts in mortality from major causes of death over time and across space were established, and hot spots of concentrated elevated mortality from individual causes of death across the territory of Ukraine were identified;
changes in life expectancy were decomposed by sex, age groups, and major causes of death in the five largest metropolitan areas of Ukraine; the structural features of the mortality regime of the population in these cities and their influence on the dynamics of life expectancy were clarified;
the impact of antisocial phenomena on the health status and mortality of the population of Ukraine was studied; the main factors in the spread of psychoactive substance use and the specificity of their manifestation were identified, and an assessment was made of demographic losses caused by alcohol abuse, tobacco smoking, and AIDS mortality;
a conceptual model of the socio-economic determinants of population health was scientifically substantiated;
an algorithm and a method for assessing the impact of socio-economic determinants on population health were developed and tested, involving the use of microsimulation modelling, within which a microdata array is adjusted on the basis of macro-level data, in particular life tables and population morbidity estimates;
an original authorial approach to assessing the impact of early-life conditions on population health in adulthood was developed, made possible by the development of research tools and the conduct of an authorial sociological survey;
a methodology was developed for modelling the impact of socio-economic determinants on population health, according to which the determinants, or independent variables, were grouped into three blocks: demographic and socio-economic characteristics, responsibility and lifestyle, and early-life conditions;
a methodological approach to the integral assessment of population health was proposed, based on the use of microdata on self-assessed health status and also providing for the inclusion of indicators calculated from official statistics, namely average life expectancy;
approaches to determining the impact of socio-economic status on population health were improved, relying on the leading role of the social gradient in shaping health inequalities in the population;
a conceptual model of the socio-economic determinants of population health was scientifically substantiated;
an algorithm and a method for assessing the impact of socio-economic determinants on population health were developed and tested, involving the use of microsimulation modelling, within which a microdata array is adjusted on the basis of macro-level data, in particular life tables and population morbidity estimates;
an original authorial approach to assessing the impact of early-life conditions on population health in adulthood was developed, made possible by the development of research tools and the conduct of an authorial sociological survey;
changes in the mortality structure of the population of Ukraine in 2021 compared with the pre-COVID year of 2019 were studied, specifically the rise of COVID-19 to second place in the ranking and the increased significance of respiratory diseases, alongside a reduction in the share of Ukraine’s leading cause of death, cardiovascular diseases; hypotheses regarding pandemic-induced future changes in mortality from specific causes were substantiated;
the most relevant factors affecting levels of losses resulting from external causes related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war were identified. The synergistic effect of these factors on the mortality level was demonstrated;
the following were forecast: changes in the ratio of endogenous and exogenous causes of death, with a substantial increase in the contribution of both external causes, primarily among men, and infectious pathology; an increase in mortality from all causes overall, both directly, due to injuries resulting from hostilities (Y36 according to ICD-10), and indirectly, as a result of suicides, injuries of undetermined intent, road traffic accidents, and poisonings;
based on the results of an online sociological survey conducted in May 2023, the high significance for Ukrainian student youth of problems related to health in general and mental health in particular was identified as a consequence of the Russian-Ukrainian war, reported by 83.6% and 77.4% of respondents, respectively;
an assessment was carried out of the impact of confirmed deaths from COVID-19 and other causes of death on gains in life expectancy;
an assessment was carried out of Ukraine’s demographic losses as a result of COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukrainian war in the period 2014–2021;
a system of indicators characterising changes in life expectancy in Ukraine during the COVID-19 pandemic was calculated in comparison with the preceding period and with selected other countries; changes in these indicators under the influence of abrupt mortality shifts were studied;
the specific features of the impact of socio-economic determinants on population health during the war were identified;
a comprehensive assessment was carried out of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the full-scale war on the health status of the population of Ukraine, making it possible to identify interrelationships and synergistic effects of these two crises; in particular, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war on morbidity from tuberculosis, HIV infection, and neoplasms, as well as on the hospitalisation rate of patients, was assessed;
regional specificities of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war on the health status of the population were established, making it possible to identify specific problems and needs of individual regions of Ukraine; a comparative analysis of tuberculosis morbidity in different regions of Ukraine under the influence of the war and the pandemic was carried out;
new approaches to the formation of a resilient healthcare system based on socio-economic determinants during and after the war were identified, including the following areas: improvement of the socio-economic determinants of health, strengthening of the healthcare system, increasing the effectiveness of emergency response, and social support during and after the war;
the use of electronic information resources for monitoring the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine was studied, and proposals were developed for improving the list of registers of Ukraine’s Electronic Healthcare System, eHealth, to more fully account for information on COVID-19 morbidity, mortality from this disease, vaccination, and post-recovery complications, as well as for storing data on other viral and infectious diseases;
a comparison was carried out of electronic resources used to study the impact of COVID-19 on increased mortality in Poland and Ukraine, as well as a comparison of information according to selected indicators and an integral stringency index;
the system of indicators for studying demographic losses resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian war and for comparison with demographic losses during the Balkan wars was improved; the creation of two new indicators was proposed: one for determining losses during the war and another for the post-war period;
in the absence of a single personal identification number, the use of composite keys for linking electronic registers was proposed. Tables were created for pairwise linkage of electronic information resources from different sectors.
a system of key fields for identifying a natural person in electronic registers was developed;
methodological support was proposed for the comprehensive use of information from registers and databases in the field of improving the provision of medical services to territorial communities;
an original ensemble of algorithms from a set of agglomerative hierarchical methods was developed, and the regions of Ukraine were clustered according to demographic indicators using ensemble cluster analysis.