The paper provides an analysis of the results of a socio-hygienic survey of 2099 residents of Leningrad and Novokuznetsk of Kemerovo Region on the state of public health in the course of a comprehensive economic experiment on the introduction of new economic methods of management. Only 5.6 percent of respondents defined the state of public health as good, 54.1 percent as satisfactory and 40.3 percent as poor. Negative attitude to public health is explained by low level of medical care and poor organization of health care delivery and not by introduction of a new economic mechanism. The majority of respondents (33.4%) believe that their health status to a large degree depends on the system of public health rather than on their efforts to keep healthy lifestyle.