Russian governmental concern about serious problems in a field of health protection connected with environmental protection and safety of Russian Federation is shown based on the analysis of national strategic documents. In this regard, the establishing of scientific basis for environmental protection and environmental safety of population aimed at the correcting of the existing environmental standards and the indicators of permissible anthropogenic impact on environment is given by the federal document "Fundamentals of Russian Environmental Policy for the period till 2030" as one of the strategic goals. The authors review hygienic, bio indicative, medical and demographic approaches to the formation of criteria for an environmental assessment. A small efficiency of the hygienic direction of environmental rationing during the assessment of technological changes in the components of nature and the influence of the anthropogenic factors on population health is given as the problem of environmental rationing. The problem of human environmental quality control based on the bioindication, health and demographic indicators is noted. A health risk and an elemental status of population are used as criteria for the environmental assessment of urban areas. According to the author’s ideas, their implementation allows to exclude the effects on health of the socioeconomic factors, concentrating on the chemical features of environment. The evaluation of population health’s risk connected with the major air pollutants and the features of the elemental status of the population of the two cities (St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don) are shown. The comparative analysis of data on the structure of morbidity and the elemental status of the child are given in the two districts of St. Petersburg, which have different degrees of anthropogenic impact. Observed features of the considered indicators of urban environment are discussed from a position of impact on it by the natural and the anthropogenic factors.