Women’s health — nation’s well-being

• Promote the idea of women’s health as one of the key components of the developing system for improving public health in the Russian Federation.
• Promote healthy lifestyle and responsibility for personal health among women of all ages in the Russian Federation.
• Create conditions for leading a healthy lifestyle, including regulatory standards, engagement of regions’ top officials and opinion leaders, as well as creation of infrastructure.
• Develop the female health component within corporate programmes for health improvement.
• Improve health of elderly women.

Target audience involves all the female population of the Russian Federation.

Women’s health is their life-long national wealth. 

It is crucial to preserve and strengthen girls’ health from their very birth, as only a healthy woman can give birth to healthy children and ensure their health through proper breastfeeding.

As homemakers, women shape the family’s lifestyle, including food culture and leisure activities. Habits acquired in childhood, such as unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyle, are hard to change in the future even if the person comes to realise their negative effect on the health. 

Besides, it is the family that teaches personal hygiene skills which turn out essential amid epidemic outbreaks, such as the current coronavirus infection. It is also the family that forms bad habits (for example, a child raised in a family where both parents smoke, is very likely to become a smoker themselves).

Health of elderly women is equally important, as on the one hand, they represent a significant human resource under a challenging demographic situation, and on the other hand, according to the traditional Russian family model, help young parents to care for their grandchildren. That is why it is important to maintain their health and active longevity. 

Thus, the woman is responsible for her own health, as well as the health of her children, husband and parents. 

Epidemiological studies conducted by the National Health and Research Centre of Preventive Healthcare show that the lifestyle of Russian women is far from ideal, with the prevalence of behavioural risk factors such as low physical activity, unhealthy diet and psycho-emotional disorders. 

This results in high rates of obesity, arterial hypertension and lipid storage diseases, which in turn provoke a considerable burden of chronic non-communicable diseases among women in the Russian Federation. Interventions to tackle risk factors for the development of chronic non-communicable diseases, and early disease detection are therefore a powerful tool to reduce mortality.

Promotion toolkit:

1. Promotion of a healthy lifestyle among women of different ages:

— children and teenagers by using communication channels relevant for the audience (engaging opinion leaders, promoting “preservation of beauty” through a healthy diet (nutrition, microbiota and its importance)).

— woman of childbearing potential — health of children and the family;

— elderly women — health of the family and professional longevity.

1. Regulatory standards for a healthy lifestyle: initiation of legislative measures aimed to limit the marketing of unhealthy diets for children, reduce salt content in foods, fix latest requirements for foods labels, and further increase the excise tax rates on alcohol at both federal and regional levels.
2. The project titled “Leaders in women’s health”, prominent women as an example of a healthy lifestyle, work-home balance, preservation of mental health, etc. In mass media and Internet.
3. Special corporate programmes in companies with a large proportion of female staff (banking and others).

Project partners, including future partners:

• National Health and Research Centre of Preventive Healthcare of the Ministry of Health of Russia;
• Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs;
• Large employers (RZD and others);
• Federal and regional mass media.