Public health in Russia and countries of Northern Europe

Health is the basis of public wellbeing of nation, its economic and social prosperity. Protection and strengthening of health of citizens is a priority task for the state. The purpose of this work - carrying out a comparative research of the condition of public (population) health in Russia and countries of Northern Europe using the methodology of the Global burden of disease project, and also identifying the most perspective programs in the field of medico-demographic policy. Such approach involves the use of DALY index - indicator of "disability adjusted life years". The DALY index for some disease or health disorder is represented as a sum of two indicators: DALY=YLL+YLD. YLL indicator (years of the lost life) characterizes losses due to a premature mortality, the YLD indicator (years lost due to disability) - years of life lost due to disturbances of health (without deaths). As a result of the conducted research were identified the main causes of health loss and the risk factors of various diseases in Russia and countries of Northern Europe, and defined the possible directions of strengthening the population health in our country on the basis of foreign experience in implementation of social innovations in the sphere of public health. A special attention is paid to ways of reducing the burden of noninfectious diseases by means of the actions for prevention, early identification and timely treatment which can be held within primary health care. The results of the work can be used for forecasting the situation and making recommendations to overcome the demographic crisis, for development of new approaches to protection and strengthening of public health.