The point of departure of this thesis is the marked deterioration in public health which took place after the fall of the communist regimes around 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe, and especially in Russia. The main hypothesis of the four articles which make up the thesis is that people's resources, in the form of social networks, material well-being, influence etc., are socially structured and that the roots of this lie partly in the old communist society and partly in the new one that has replaced it.