The goal of this paper is to identify critical factors in success/failure of public policies focusing on fighting the spread of COVID-19 pandemic using a sample of three countries from Central and Eastern Europe with different results regarding COVID-19 morbidity and mortality rates, namely the Czech Republic, the Russian Federation, and the Slovak Republic. Based on comprehensive literature review, three independent variables were worked out: the scope/scale of public policy anti-pandemic interventions, the timing of public policy interventions, and the success of public policies in motivating compliance with anti-pandemic measures. Taking into account the similarity of measures introduced by national governments, the results suggest that the timing of public policy responses and success in motivating compliance may be critical factors in containing the pandemic.

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In the course of their transition to a market economy, the importance of international knowledge transfer from developed capitalist countries to the post-Soviet states has increased. However, the question of what particular knowledge has been transferred and why in some cases knowledge transfer has been successful, while in others it has failed, remains under-researched. Using gender mainstreaming as an example, the mechanisms of international knowledge transfer in Russian social policy are discussed in detail. The authors argue that specific knowledge transfer could facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge, but its sustainable application in social policy decision-making might be problematic, requiring commitment of political actors as well as supportive institutional conditions.

Neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson disease among them, set challenges to modern societies both in terms of premature deaths and resources spent on treatment of the diseases. At that, preventive care and early diagnostics in particular are potential directions towards higher economic efficiency of healthcare interventions in this area. Authors of this paper suggest a modification of the cost-utility approach to evaluate economic efficiency of an early diagnostics at the presymptomatic (prodromal) stage of Parkinson disease (PD), when its symptoms do not appear clinically yet. Such diagnostics, in combination with neuroprotective therapy for persons at high risk of PD, allows postponing its development until later years, and thereby ensuring an improvement in the quality of life of the population, as well as saving resources of the healthcare system and society as a whole. The authors rely on the diagnostic approach proposed by the research group headed by M. Ugryumov, which is currently at the stage of laboratory testing. Its implementation potentially leads to savings in both direct and indirect costs for PD treatment compared to the traditional approach, but increases testing costs, and also requires the development of new neuroprotective therapy for identified risk groups. The authors propose a modification of the cost-benefit assessment procedure to take into account the uncertainty associated with the lack of a final understanding of the scope and composition of the testing group at the preclinical stage. The condition for the economic efficiency of the preclinical diagnostic method in the developed procedure is the minimum permissible probability of detecting an increased risk of PD in the test group. To test their algorithm, the authors carry out calculations basing on the Russian data.