Methodological Approaches to Measuring Public Health as the Sociomedical Resource and Potential of the Society

Abstract

Introduction: The study describes existing approaches to defining public health. The state of public health affects the ability of the country to achieve strategic landmarks and national security goals. Strengthening of public health requires the development of approaches to monitoring its condition, as well as the use of practical tools aimed at the growth of this resource of the country. Objective: To formulate the problem of studying, conceptualizing, and measuring public health. Materials and methods: We have analyzed foreign and Russian literary sources in order to conceptualize the notion of public health and its determinants. For this, a search was made in five databases of domestic and foreign scientific literature, including Scopus, Jstor, Ebsco, eLibrary.ru, Web of Science, as well as in two search systems for Russian legal information (“Consultant Plus” and “Garant”) for the years 1972–2021. To clarify the concept of “public health”, we examined the main sociological works revealing the concepts of “society” and “health”. Special emphasis was placed on the search for public health determinants, including medical, behavioral, environmental, and economic factors. Overall, we considered 31 domestic and six foreign publications. Results: Based on our findings, we believe that public health is a medical and social resource and the potential of the society that ensures national security and sustainable development of the country. The potential of the society should be considered as a part of public health, available to counter existing threats and challenges to the national security. We describe current approaches to developing a system of public health indicators, establishing their indicative and critical values. A decrease in the public health resource below the potential determines a violation of national security requirements. Conclusion: Improvement of public health requires proper understanding of its determinants and key risk factors. Creation of a monitoring system will enable the use of public health supporting tools before the crisis associated with deterioration of public health due to a biological hazard erupts.