Health prevention

Health promotion and disease prevention are important priorities for the Estonian Health Insurance Fund (EHIF). Through health promotion (social campaigns, dissemination of health information, counselling etc) people are encouraged to pursue healthy lifestyles. The ultimate goal is to improve the status of health and quality of life of the people.

Disease prevention (health checks and medical examinations) creates the possibilities for risk groups for early detection of health problems, timely intervention, if necessary; and eventually preservation of their health. Any preventive medical examination must be acceptable and easy to undertake for the patient and produce evidence-based information. Timely detection of a disease through the examination must result in treatment leading to recovery. These conditions are met in the case of preventive activities funded by EHIF.

The need and frequency of many preventive examinations or health checks are often specified in the clinical practice guidelines (e.g. those to be undertaken during pregnancy, dental checks etc). The disease prevention projects financed by EHIF constitute a part of the activities in the relevant field to be undertaken in the framework of the National Health Strategy.