Age-Sex Structure of Population as One of the Factors of Its Morbidity at the Regional Level

Abstract

Morbidity in a population according to its main classes, groups and specific diseases depends on many factors: economic development and living conditions of the population, the development of a network of healthcare organizations and the availability of basic and specialized types of medical care, the availability of medical personnel and their qualifications, the attitude of residents to their health and timely preventive measures, etc. The article presents a method of assessing the influence of age-sex population structure on the capacity of health care, describes the stages of calculations and gives specific examples. The characteristic feature of the method is the fact that when changing from intensive indicators to coefficients per unit, data in a given age-sex group are considered. For the two territories, which have significant differences in the age-sex population structure, the results of calculations of the number of first-time malignancies and active tuberculosis cases, which can occur only due to the influence of the age-sex population structure, all other factors being equal, are shown. The significant difference in the total estimated figures for the Belgorod region and the Republic of Ingushetia indicates that this factor should be taken into account in the analysis of the activities of medical organizations, planning capacity of health care and availability of medical personnel.