Modern aspects of professional pathological care to agricultural workers

Abstract

We revealed a decrease of 19.2 percent in the number of workers in hazardous working conditions during the from 2011 to 2017 period based on the analysis of updated data on working conditions in the agricultural sector of the economy, regional levels of occupational morbidity, accessibility of medical organizations to rural residents and occupational morbidity of agricultural workers, which was not accompanied by a corresponding drop in the share of this cohort in the total structure of employees in the agricultural sector, whose share decreased by 4.4 percent. The coverage of agricultural workers with periodic medical examinations increased from 75.6 percent (2011) to 82.7 percent (2017) along with the increase in the provision of rural health institutions with occupational physicians from 43.3 to 60.0 percent of the level for need. The number of subjects of the Russian Federation on whose territory cases of occupational diseases were recorded decreased by 25.6 percent: from 39 to 29 regions during the period from 2011 to 2017. At the same time, the level of occupational morbidity increased by 32.3 percent from 1.27 (2015) to 1.68 (2017) per 10 thousand workers in the industry. 43.7 - 57.2 percent of occupational diseases' cases were diagnosed in self-referral to the centers of occupational pathology for different years of observation. Most cases of occupational diseases were detected by the centers of professional pathology operating on the basis of scientific organizations of Rospotrebnadzor, research institutes of hygienic profile of federal subordination and institutions of higher professional education of the Russian Ministry of Health.