Under the conditions of conceptual transition of public health policy from considering citizens as passive consumers of medical services to their awareness of their own active position in health preservation, it becomes fundamentally important to understand the types of health care attitudes of the population. The aim of the study was to make a typology of the population according to the nature of health-saving attitudes and to study its influence on the dissemination of healthy lifestyle practices. We have analyzed and summarized approaches to the interpretation of health-saving motivation and classification of health care motives. We reviewed the experience of applying cluster analysis in studies of health behavior. We found that most of them use self-preservation practices as indicators for typology, while the equally important value-motivational component is most often left out of sight. Our study is designed to fill this gap. The results of the sociological monitoring of the physical health of the Vologda Oblast population in 2020 served as the information base. The motives of health care were considered in inseparable interrelation with the degree of health care and responsibility for it. We used the cluster analysis method (hierarchical and k-means method) to make a typology of the population. In the course of clustering we identified three groups of population according to the nature of health saving attitudes: 1) responsible, but unmotivated, caring little or no concern for health, 2) sharing responsibility, motivated and caring for health, 3) responsible, motivated and caring for health. We defined a socio-demographic portrait of representatives of each cluster. Representatives of the third cluster lead the healthiest way of life, while more than half of the respondents of the first cluster do not take any measures in relation to health. The results of the study have an explicit practical value in terms of managing self-preservation behavior
Keywords
health care, typology, sociological survey, motivation, cluster analysis, health-saving attitudes, responsibility for health, healthy lifestyle practices