Healthy father - healthy children (results of long-term cohort monitoring in the Vologda oblast)

Children and their health is the foundation of human potential formation. Health is the most important component on which a person’s education and socialization throughout life depends. It has been proved that parents play an enormous role in children’s health care: educational potential, heredity, medical activity. There are numerous studies on the interrelation of conditions and risk factors for child health on mother’s part. Their results are used in the development and implementation of maternal and child health programs at all levels of government. At the same time, there are few publications on the physical and neuropsychological state of expectant fathers. Thus, there is no full-fledged information and empirical basis for substantiating the tools for preserving men’s health as a risk factor for children’s health. There is insufficient data to develop preventive measures and systematize the interaction of family, health care, education and social protection organizations to prevent child health risks on the part of the father. In view of the relevance of the topic, we made an attempt to identify risk factors for the health of children born in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2014, 2020 in the Vologda Oblast on the father’s side as part of the long-term research “Studying the conditions of a healthy generation formation”. The importance of studying the risks to child health on the father’s side stems from the need to develop comprehensive measures aimed at the male population, starting from childhood, in order to preserve reproductive health and minimize the consequences for the health of the future generation. We suppose that prevention of risk factors on the part of the father and reduction of the existing ones can significantly improve the health of the child population from the medical point of view, increase life expectancy from the demographic point of view, reduce health care costs, social and disability benefits, create conditions for improving the quality of human potential of the child population and human capital in the future from the economic point of view.