On the 8th of June 2022, the Centro Poliklinika team, participating in the Cardiovascular risk screening program for active prevention in fifty-year-olds, presented the objectives of Young 50 to a network of Public Health Bureaus. During the meeting, it was described how the program was adopted in the local setting and how the screening model was developed in Lithuania. The main activities on how to affect behavioral and medical risk factors of cardiovascular diseases during the program were described. The meeting was held remotely (online, using Teams).
Public Health Bureaus are public health care municipal offices established to implement public health functions assigned to municipalities by legal acts. During the meeting, over 80 representatives represented Public Health Bureaus, municipalities, and the Ministry of health. The object of the meeting was to identify bureaus willing to join the Young 50 project and overtake the best practices. It also discussed the financial and parts of the Young50 program that could be transferred.
The main functions of the public health bureaus are health promotion in the municipal community, health monitoring in the municipality, and communicable disease prevention in the municipality, and it lines perfectly with the Young50 project goals.
Public health monitoring in Lithuania is a purposefully organized and systematic collection, storage, and processing of information on the level of public health and risk factors that impact public health and cardiovascular prevention is one of the main priorities.
After collecting comprehensive data on public health and factors that impact it, bureaus determine public health problems and priorities for public health improvement; also, based on objective information, we will plan and implement local public health promotion and prevention programs. Therefore after successfully transferring the Young50 program to Lithuanian settings, MoH, together with bureaus, is considering further project development.
Public health promotion – health education, spreading information about public health, promoting and forming a healthy lifestyle, and reducing behavior-based health risk factors will take place in the next steps of program development.
