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Public Health and Life Environment – PH&LE

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No 12 (2022)
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ISSUES OF MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL HYGIENE

7-16 1493
Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need to improve methods of public health assessment and approaches to the development of a system for its monitoring in the Russian Federation. Public health represents a sociomedical resource of the society, deterioration of which has a negative effect on the potential of the society to resist emerging threats. Within a series of previous studies, the authors have developed a methodological approach to calculating the public health index, the monitoring of which will facilitate managerial decisions aimed at strengthening of the potential of public health.

Objective: To test a methodological approach to calculating the public health index in the regions of the Russian Federation. Materials and methods: To estimate the public health index, we applied an original methodology specially developed with account for strategic goals outlined by the Russian President and provisions of the WHO Handbook for calculation and use of the Urban Health Index. It includes correlation assessment and standardization of parameters. The components of the public health index were selected in view of the requirements established by the presidential decree on preserving the population of the country, developing the human potential, and strengthening national defense capabilities.

Results: We calculated Russian regional values of the public health index for the year 2019. The year selection was determined by the absence of significant biological challenges, currently posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of the pension reform. The estimated mean of the public health index in the Russian Federation in 2019 was 0.238, with extremes established in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (0.458) and the Kurgan Region (0.036).

Conclusions: Public health monitoring involves tracking of achieved values of the public health index and its individual constituents as they allow judgment on the potential of the society to counteract external threats. Further research should be aimed at analyzing changes in the public health index in the regions of Russia during and after large-scale biological and social challenges. It seems expedient to consider the issue of creating a national information portal devoted to public health problems in the country.

17-23 732
Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected mortality patterns. In recent years, mortality rates in the Irkutsk Region have exceeded the Russian national averages.

Objective: To analyze changes in mortality rates and the structure of causes of death in the Irkutsk Region before the pandemic of the novel coronavirus disease and after its onset.

Materials and methods: We compared the Irkutsk regional mortality rates and causes of death with those registered in the population of the Siberian Federal District and the Russian Federation in 2010–2019, prior to the pandemic, and in the year 2020.

Results: In 2010–2019, the all-cause mortality rate in the Irkutsk Region decreased by 8.6 %, while those from diseases of the respiratory system and injury and poisonings dropped by 45.1 % and 33.6 %, respectively. In 2020, COVID-19 ranked fourth in the causes of death structure while death rates from all causes, diseases of the respiratory, digestive, endocrine, and nervous systems demonstrated a statistical increase. In total, the regional mortality rate from infectious diseases and COVID-19 in 2020 was 162.9 per 100,000 population, ranking third in the mortality pattern and inferior only to diseases of the circulatory system and neoplasms.

Conclusion: We have traced the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in the general population and on deaths from specific causes, directly or indirectly related to the novel coronavirus disease. In 2020, the regional trend towards an increase in life expectancy was interrupted.

MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY

24-29 594
Abstract

Introduction: The youth volunteer movement is becoming one of the available ways of reducing the spread of COVID-19 and providing practical support to healthcare workers. The main activities of volunteers include participation in the work of healthcare institutions, medical support for mass events, assistance to charitable organizations, health and blood donation promotion, and first aid training. Volunteering develops competent qualities in future graduates, educates them in an active citizenship, reduces medical staff outflow, and increases safety of health care.

Objective: To establish the attitude of medical university students towards volunteering

Materials and methods: In autumn 2021, we conducted an anonymous online survey of 202 medical university students aged 17–25 years using a specially developed questionnaire created on Google Forms based on the Holmes and Rahe Life Stress Inventory (Social Readjustment Rating Scale, SRRS) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) validated by Tarabrina (2001) on a Russian sample. The answers were then analyzed using the SPSS 12.0 statistical software with the calculation of relative values (extensive and intensive indicators) and the Spearman correlation coefficient.

Results: We established the attitude of young people towards volunteering and specified its attractive aspects for students, the reasons for refusing to volunteer, and perceived personal qualities of an ideal volunteer. We also confirmed the hypothesis that volunteering has a direct impact on anxiety and stress resistance of students. Our findings will contribute to determining further directions for expanding the volunteer movement and involving future healthcare professionals.

Conclusion: The attractiveness of the volunteer movement for students is mainly due to pragmatic motives. To create a personnel reserve of employees with a practical understanding of professional activity, it is necessary to develop targeted forms of support for student volunteers.

PEDIATRIC HYGIENE

30-36 985
Abstract

Background: The recent expansion of scientific knowledge of child development under effect of man-made environmental changes is of great importance for monitoring health of the younger generation and elaborating the theory of adaptation in terms of ontogenesis.

Objective: To develop regional standards for the main anthropometric parameters used to assess growth and physical development of children and adolescents in the city of Magadan.

Materials and methods: We analyzed data on 4,660 schoolchildren (2,295 boys and 2,365 girls) aged 8–17 years collected in 2009–2019. The main anthropometric measurements, including body height, weight, and chest circumference, were taken to estimate reference centile row variables.

Results: We created centile tables based on the results of measuring body height, weight, and chest circumference in the study population and established that in local boys, all findings were above the upper limit of the national averages (i.e., the range of 25th to 75th percentiles) while in girls, the same was true only for body weight and chest circumference. The maximum difference between body measurements and the respective upper limits was observed in the adolescents. Distribution of anthropometric parameters of the schoolchildren by the regional standard centile rows indicates compliance with the average body height and weight in 50.0 % and 50.1 % and with chest circumference – in 49.0 % of the children, while deviations, less than the 3rd and equal to and more than the 97th percentile, occurred in 2.0 % to 5.5 % of the cases, respectively.

Conclusion: It is important to continue developing up-to-date regional child growth standards in the city of Magadan and to introduce them into the practice of preventive health screening.

37-44 1633
Abstract

Introduction: Health of student youth is a strategic priority that contributes to better adaptation of students to socio-physiological processes in learning and subsequent professional labor. The lifestyle and habits affect health; thus, building and strengthening of commitment to a healthy lifestyle in young people is the only manageable resource for improving health of the society.

Objective: To analyze and assess the attitude and commitment of student youth towards values and perceptions of a healthy lifestyle.

Materials and methods: We conducted a questionnaire-based survey of university students on the perceived criteria of a responsible attitude towards their health in the 2020–2021 academic year. The questionnaire included 20 questions on the topics of health and a healthy lifestyle and was anonymously filled out by 195 first to third year students of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service (Group 1; 81 boys and 114 girls) and 210 students of the Pacific State Medical University (Group 2; 78 boys and 132 girls). The mean age of boys was 19 ± 0.9 to 21 ± 0.3 years and that of girls, 20 ± 0.6 to 22 ± 0.1 years. The information obtained was processed and analyzed using SPSS Statistics 17.0.

Results: We established a negative trend in the attitude of students towards their health over the study period. This applied to both self-rated health and adherence to a healthy lifestyle. Unhealthy behavioral practices, such as low physical activity, bad habits, and passive leisure, persisted.

Conclusions: The survey results served as the basis for developing proposals and recommendations on the expediency of promoting the interest of students to building healthy lifestyle skills in the changing socio-economic and epidemiological situation. 

COMMUNAL HYGIENE

45-52 603
Abstract

Introduction: Long-term multicomponent ambient air pollution in residential areas is one of the serious threats to human health. The Federal Clean Air Project implemented within the National Ecology Project aims at fundamental improvement of the quality of life of the Russian population through reduction in emissions of priority (hazardous) pollutants posing the highest health risks.

Objective: To substantiate the choice and to analyze the results of monitoring of priority air pollutants in the city of Norilsk included in the Project.

Materials and methods: Priority chemicals were determined based on the results of a health risk assessment. The exposure was assessed on the basis of dispersion calculations using a consolidated database of stationary and mobile emission sources (1,970 sources from 110 enterprises and 175 sections of the urban road network) and the “Ecologist – City” 4.60.1 software with the “Average” calculation block, realizing atmospheric dispersion modeling techniques approved in the Russian Federation. The airborne pollutant accounting for at least 95 % of the unacceptable carcinogenic and/or non-carcinogenic risk was considered a priority. The estimates were then verified by the results of measuring ambient concentrations of 20 pollutants within socio-hygienic air quality monitoring in Norilsk for 2020–2021.

Results: We established that both short- and long-term exposure to air pollutants posed unacceptable health risks to more than 180 thousand people affected. The list of priority contaminants subject to monitoring and priority regulation comprised ten chemicals, including nitrogen oxide and dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, sulfuric acid, carbon oxide, copper oxide, nickel compounds, lead and its compounds, and benzene, of which seven were confirmed as such by the monitoring data. In fact, the measured concentrations of sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, copper and nickel compounds at a number of sites were significantly higher than those estimated by dispersion modeling. Vapors of sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide were below the limit of detection.

Conclusions: The health risk assessment methodology used for selecting priority air pollutants is an adequate and effective tool of environmental management. Verification of the lists of priority chemicals compiled on the basis of dispersion modeling using the merged database on the urban sources of air pollution is expedient and necessitates improvement of techniques and mechanisms for stocktaking of emission sources. A significant discrepancy between the estimated and measured data on pollution levels should be discussed by all interested parties and result in changes to the consolidated databases and an increase in the accuracy of subsequent hygienic assessments, including that of public health risks.

53-58 348
Abstract

Introduction: Photocatalytic recirculators located along the natural movement of air disinfect and neutralize indoor air, promote its circulation, and fill the interior volume with purified air according to the “general” or “dispersing” scheme, thus reducing the levels of air pollutants. Yet, they are unable to provide adequate protection against severe pollution close to its source.

Objective: To study the efficiency of disinfection of the workplace air using a specially developed forced and exhaust photocatalytic recirculator.

Materials and methods: Testing was carried out in the breathing zone of a laboratory assistant at the workplace without natural and artificial ventilation in the box of the Department of Clinical Microbiology. The efficiency of air disinfection was judged by a decrease in the total microbial count after ultraviolet and photocatalytic treatment using the recirculator.

Results: In the chamber of the developed forced and exhaust photocatalytic recirculator, high energy illumination and expo- sure to ultraviolet radiation of the C spectrum are created, as well as high surface and volume density of bactericidal flux and bactericidal energy, corresponding to the experimental values of antimicrobial surface and volume doses at 95 % bacterial efficiency for Staphylococcus aureus. We established that the recirculator provided a 90.19 % air disinfection per cycle and supplied the air with 94.99 % and 95.53 % of microbes killed to the breathing zone of the laboratory assistant at distances of 1 m and 2 m at an acceptable velocity. It also disinfected the contaminated air by 96.55 % and 95.97 % at the workplace at distances of 1 m and 2 m by exhausting the air at an acceptable velocity compared to a serial photocatalytic recirculator.

Conclusion: For effective air purification in the working space, it is advisable to use the developed photocatalytic recirculator equipped with additional air ducts, which ensures the exhaust of 96 % of contaminated air and the disinfection rate of 95 % at an acceptable speed.

59-65 430
Abstract

Introduction: Strong influence of noise on the urban population is one of the problems of a large city. The main sources of noise include road transport, industrial enterprises, and construction sites. A combined exposure to various sources of noise impedes assessment of their effects on the population. Distinguishing one noise source from another is a difficult measurement task.

Objective: To measure noise levels close to a large industrial enterprise given busy traffic nearby, and determine contributions of the industry and road transport to the noise situation in the neighboring residential area.

Materials and methods: In summer 2022, noise levels were measured in the vicinity of a large industrial enterprise located in the city of Perm in the daytime and at night at seven and eight sites, respectively, using a sound and vibration meter of the “Assistant” series with an additional “Monitoring” mode. The subsequent processing of chronograms in the “Monitoring” software enabled us to distinguish the noise generated by the industry from that of road traffic using the “Cut” function that removes interferences. Processing of the results using the “energy subtraction” technique allowed quantification of contributions of various sources to the local noise pollution.

Results: In this study, noise was measured in a residential area adjacent to an industrial enterprise and the obtained results are provided. Noise levels from the enterprise were determined using a specialized software. The calculated contributions to the noise environment in the residential area vary between 0.035 and 0.603. The conclusion is made about a possible effect produced by noise from the analyzed industrial enterprise on people living on this territory.

Conclusion: The effect of industrial noise on people living close to industrial premises is significant only at nighttime.

RADIATION HYGIENE

66-72 374
Abstract

Introduction: Uranium, the basic raw material of the nuclear industry, poses health risks to people occupationally exposed to its compounds. Studies of adverse effects of radiation exposure in workers of nuclear facilities necessitate a cohort of employees handling uranium compounds.

Objective: To form a historic cohort and create a database of the personnel of the Siberian Chemical Plant exposed to uranium compounds at workplaces in 1953–2000.

Materials and methods: The source of information was the Regional Health and Dosimetry Register of the Seversk Biophysical Research Center, containing data on all current and former employees of the Siberian Chemical Plant (ca. 65,000 people) from the date of establishment of the company to the present.

Results: We have created and described a cohort of 1,484 workers (898 men and 586 women) exposed to uranium compounds at the Siberian Chemical Plant in 1953–2000. Health and dosimetry information of the cohort members was entered in a specially developed database of the personnel of the Siberian Chemical Plant engaged in works with uranium compounds during that time period.

Conclusion: Both the retrospective cohort and the detailed database allow epidemiological studies of cancer incidence and mortality in the industry workers and evidence-based conclusions about the contribution of occupational exposure to uranium compounds. The cohort of employees of the Siberian Chemical Plant meets all the requirements of up-to-date epidemiological studies in terms of its size and completeness of health and exposure data.

EPIDEMIOLOGY

73-80 1427
Abstract

Relevance: Purulent bacterial meningitis and invasive meningococcal disease remain relevant throughout the world and are of particular concern due to high mortality and disability rates, as well as regular outbreaks of meningococcal infections.

Objective: To establish epidemiological features of purulent bacterial meningitis and meningococcal disease in the Russian Federation and to highlight the problem of immunization.

Materials and methods: Data were collected at the Russian Reference Center for Bacterial Meningitis Monitoring of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology in the personified system for registering cases of purulent bacterial meningitis, including meningococcal disease, meningitis of non-meningococcal and unknown etiology. We examined 28,440 registered cases.

Results: We established that three pathogens, that is, meningococcus, pneumococcus and Haemophilus influenzae, accounted for 84 % of all cases of bacterial meningitis, the most vulnerable age group being children under 5 years of age. Despite a general decrease in the incidence of purulent bacterial meningitis in the Russian Federation in 2010–2019, we noted an increasing incidence of pneumococcal meningitis and invasive meningococcal disease by the end of the study period. In terms of age, the 10-year observation period demonstrated a decrease in the incidence of invasive meningococcal disease in children and its rise among adolescents and young adults; an increase in the incidence of pneumococcal meningitis in adults and a null decrease in children; and the absence of a downward trend in the incidence of Haemophilus meningitis in children.

Discussion: Organization of epidemiological monitoring of bacterial meningitis within the system of epidemiological surveillance in the Russian Federation in 2010, its testing and 12-year implementation has enabled us to trace changes in the incidence, mortality, and fatality of the disease and to establish age groups at risk. To reduce the burden of the disease, it is expedient to further improve the existing immunization programs in the Russian Federation.

81-88 951
Abstract

Introduction: The demand for new rapid methods for development of medicines for health care is becoming more relevant. Detailed knowledge of the spatial structure of viral proteins and their complexes formed when the organism is infected with viruses is important for effective development of vaccines and antiviral drugs. Timely selection of sensitive animal models and the study of the pathogenesis of an infectious disease on them are important for quality testing of biological preparations. The synchrotron radiation source is a new powerful biological research tool.

Objective: To analyze the potential of existing sources of synchrotron radiation for conducting virology research, from macroorganisms to individual viral proteins.

Materials and methods: We searched for literary sources published in 1996–2022 and devoted to the use of synchrotron radiation in virology and its importance for public health in the future using relevant keywords in the PubMed and PDB databases. Fifty-one full-text publications were found eligible for inclusion in the review.

Results: Currently, there are over 70 different synchrotron radiation sources worldwide and many of them are used for diverse biological studies of living systems. Phaseontrast X-ray imaging makes it possible to visualize soft tissues in vivo with resolution up to 1 µm in the absence of contrast agents. Synchrotron radiation allows real-time 3D-histology without the necessity to prepare ultra-thin slices. Obtaining the structure of viral proteins in solution and protein crystallography realized with synchrotron radiation sources has been actively used in antiviral drug development and the study of fundamental properties of viruses since 2000.

Conclusion: The X-ray techniques realized in synchrotron radiation sources discussed in this review constitute the fundamental basis of many virology studies and have a promising future for ensuring biological safety of Russia.

MARKING THE CENTENARY OF THE RUSSIAN SANITARY AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SERVICE



ISSN 2219-5238 (Print)
ISSN 2619-0788 (Online)