Methodological Approach to Organizing Public Health Monitoring in the Russian Federation

Introduction: The World Health Organization has defined the term “public health” as a sociomedical resource and potential of the society but no common methodological approach to its assessment and implementation in the public administration system has been proposed so far. Our study reveals a methodological approach to organizing public health monitoring in the Russian Federation. The relevance of this study is related to the need to focus government regulation on improving the quality of life of citizens, which cannot be achieved without duly monitoring of public health, subsequent managerial decision-making, and ensuring the continuity of health care. Objective: To develop a methodological approach to organization of public health monitoring. Materials and methods: Foreign and Russian experience was reviewed and analyzed based on 37 regulations and scientific papers of foreign and domestic authors published from the year 2008 to the present. We have also systematized guidelines issued by the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Standardization, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to identify mandatory components of public health monitoring. The OECD “Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators: Methodology and User Guide” and the WHO “Urban Health Index” are used in determining the procedure for calculating public health indices. Results: We have developed the first methodological approach to constructing monitoring of public health in the Russian Federation that includes criteria of its evaluation as a sociomedical resource, involving calculation of the strategic and operational index of public health status. This approach reveals the order of implementation of organizational and process elements. Organizational elements are related to monitoring administration while process elements reveal the procedure for calculating public health indices. In addition to determining the indicative and critical values of the indices, it also seems appropriate to monitor individual indicators used in calculating the indices, such as the size of “population of pre-reproductive age”, “population under the working age”, “population covered by vaccination”, etc. Conclusion: The implementation of the methodological approach will ensure both the overall control of public health and monitoring of its individual areas. The calculation of the operational index will facilitate adjustment of actions of the authorities on a monthly basis while the assessment of the strategic index will increase the effectiveness of activities implemented within the framework of the strategic planning system.