Methodological foundations for developing a strategy to counteract environmental risks to public health

   Introduction: Currently, environmental risks are one of the most important human health threats. Air, water and soil pollution; climate change and loss biodiversity; food contamination, household conditions, and other environmental factors have a significant impact on public health.

   Objective: To develop methodological foundations of the strategy to counter environmental risks to public health.

   Materials and methods: Based on systematization of provisions of regulatory documents (3 federal laws, 3 presidential decrees, and 3 state reports) and guidelines for risk assessment, a methodological approach to creating the strategy for countering environmental risks to public health is disclosed. The use of these documents is justified by the fact that environmental risks actually entail the risks of failure to achieve strategic benchmarks for maintaining and strengthening public health. We summarized the results of 23 scientific publications issued in 2001–2022. The articles were selected using search engines (PubMed, CyberLeninka, and eLibrary.ru) by the keywords: environmental risks to health, public health, environment, health risk management. Based on the reviewed documents, methodological foundations for developing the strategy for countering environmental risks are described.

   Results: We outline the leading current environmental risks, present their classification and the developed methodology for risk response strategy. The methodology contains a number of sequential stages: identification of environmental risks; assessment of their human health effects; risk stratification; development of specific measures aimed at protecting population health by eliminating or reducing the impact of environmental risks; assessment of effectiveness of measures and adjustment.

   Conclusion: The methodology presents a comprehensive approach to addressing environmental risks, which is an important step towards improving public health and the quality of human life.

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