[Health care planning strategies and the need for demographic and operational research]

Planning of health care is an indispensible prerequisite of social and economic development of every state. The European version of the WHO programme Health for All is suitable planning model. The programme is systematically conceived, it states general fundamental priorities and the sequence of the implementation of tasks to attain precisely defined goals. Its implementation calls for epidemiological, sociological and operational research in order to study the health status of the population, risk and protective factors and the function of the system of health services. A uniform overall national programme of health care should be elaborated and our nation-wide health programmes should form an integral part in it.