Dritan Ulqinaku1, Herion Muja1, Marinela Kaçorri1
1Institute of Public Health, Tirana Albania.
The Albanian population has been experiencing an increased dynamism which has affected the age structures where the mass dismissal of the most active working age is evident. Except for absolute population numbers that suffered a decrease from year to year, the age structure of the country also changed. The situation becomes even more complicated when we have some official population number from several different governmental institutions. Why we as health professionals are concerned about these facts? The answer is simple: every planning, policy and investment should absolutely reflect the changes of the population for better efficiency.
Aim: The need to identify the population in order to plan human and financial resources more accurately.
Methods: This is a descriptive study of some official data about the population of the district of Tirana, obtained from the municipality of Tirana, its official website and from the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund.
Results: According to our study, in almost any case we do not have a compatibility of the number of residents reported by local units or mini municipalities of Tirana with the numbers of residents reported by the health system and respectively by Tirana Operator and the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund. Also in Tirana we do not have a matching of health centers with municipal units or small municipalities, which greatly influences the number of population.
Conclusions: Having a unified population number is the first thing required and all planning, findings and adjustments are raised above that number.
Keywords: health, number, population, Tirana.