Annotation

The article substantiates public health as a constitutional legal category in which the collectivist foundations of health protection are correlated with everyone’s right to health protection and medical care. In accordance with the constitutional amendments of 2020, the concept of public health, as well as its preservation and strengthening, acquired independent normative significance as a matter of joint jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and its constituent entities. In this capacity, public health constitutes a constitutionally significant public good encompassing the state of the population’s health, the legal and organizational conditions for its protection, and the limits of permissible public intervention. The article concludes that the collectivist content of public health creates the prerequisites for guaranteeing equal opportunities for health protection and medical care, while the personal dimension of the corresponding constitutional right under Article 41 requires a fair differentiation of legal regulation - including the grounds, conditions, and guarantees of its implementation - taking into account the specific circumstances of particular socio-demographic groups, including children, persons with disabilities, pensioners, patients with severe and rare diseases, and other vulnerable groups.