Introduction: Weather factors, including increasingly frequent heat waves, can raise human health risks.

Objective: To propose methodological approaches allowing quantitative assessment of health risk levels related to exposure to meteorological factors using heat waves as an example.

Materials and methods: The methodological approaches were developed based on conceptual provisions of the health risk assessment methodology and Russian Guidelines MR 2.1.10.0057–12, Assessment of risk and damage from climate changes that increase morbidity and mortality rates in at-risk populations. They were then tested on heat waves using air temperatures registered in the city of Perm from January 01, 1992 to December 31, 2022 and respiratory and circulatory disease incidence rates observed in 2010–2022.

Results: Approaches to assessing human health risks posed by weather factors are described. They include priority setting criteria, description of exposures, formulas for calculating their levels and health risks given the severity of outcomes, and the rating scale. The results of testing the approach using data on 2010 heat wave in Perm showed that the total risk for the child population associated with respiratory diseases was 2.66 × 10–6; those for the adults and attributed to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases – 2.34 × 10–8 and 6.66 × 10–7, respectively; and those for the elderly population and related to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases were 1.81 × 10–6 and 1.03 × 10–5, respectively. The lifetime risks were ranked as minimal and acceptable.

Conclusions: The suggested approaches facilitate quantitative assessment of risks posed by meteorological exposures taking into account severity of likely health outcomes and determination of their acceptability.

Introduction: The priority tasks of protecting reproductive health include the reduction of reproductive losses and improvement of sexual well-being of the population, both impossible without resolving the problem of the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

Objective: To study the rates, structure, and dynamics of the incidence and prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in the population of a metropolis using the Russian city of St. Petersburg as an example.

Materials and methods: Based on statistical materials of the Central Research Institute of Health for 2018–2022, we have analyzed incidence and prevalence rates of genital tract infections in the population of St. Petersburg, the Northwestern Federal District, and the Russian Federation. We also assessed the age, sex, and social structure based on Form No. 9, Information on sexually transmitted infections and infectious skin diseases, for the year 2022 in St. Petersburg. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient was used to compare the indicators with the critical significance level of 0.05. The statistical analysis and data visualization were performed using Microsoft Office Excel 2016.

Results: In 2018–2022, the incidence rates of most sexually transmitted infections in the residents St. Petersburg were high and exceeded the Russian averages by 1.2 to 3.3 times. A significant increase in the proportion of females with gonococcal infection (by 34.7 %) and trichomoniasis (by 7.7 %), as well as the predominance of infected girls (in the age group of 2 to 14 years – 100 % and 15 to 17 years – 85.1 %) in relation to all the diseases under consideration, raise concerns about their fertility and the future demographic situation. The presence of the infected among the minors and a high detection rate in the unemployed carries risks of unaccounted (hidden) morbidity and an epidemic outbreak of infection.

Conclusion: Negative trends and specificity of sexually transmitted infections in residents of megacities require improvement of modern approaches to their prevention and detection, including by bettering sex education for girls, broadening dispensary screening of adults and children, and conducting periodic checkups of the working-age population.

Introduction: Pneumonias remain a public health challenge in different countries owing to their high epidemiologic and socioeconomic importance. Streptococcus pneumoniae rank highest among the bacterial etiologic agents of the disease accounting for 33 % to 50 % of all cases with established causes.

Objective: To analyze pneumonia incidence among the working-age population of the Ural Federal District.

Materials and methods: We have analyzed the incidence of pneumonia in the people of working age living in the Ural Federal District and its constituents for the years 2012–2019. The restriction of the study period is associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021, during which cases of viral pneumonia were not distinguished during registration, thus making the retrospective comparison impossible. We used statistical materials of the Central Research Institute for Health Organization and Informatics of the Russian Ministry of Health and the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology in the Sverdlovsk Region in part of infectious and parasitic disease surveillance.

Results: The pneumonia incidence rate in the working-age population of the Ural Federal District over the study period significantly exceeded the Russian average (379.5 ± 14.9 vs. 328.9 ± 26.37 per 100,000 working-age population in the Russian Federation, p = 0.01)) and tended to increase. The rates were statistically higher in the regions and in large industrial urban districts with developed mining and mineral processing industries.

Conclusions: The incidence of pneumonia in the working-age population of the Ural Federal District demonstrates a rising trend. In urban districts with developed mining and processing industries, the disease rates among the population of working age significantly exceed the regional averages.

Introduction: It is known that the quality of drinking water and its availability are key factors determining health of the population. The Vladimir water supply system is one of the oldest in Russia. Today, most of the pipelines of the urban water distribution network have significant physical wear, which can significantly affect the quality of tap water.

Objective: To assess of the quality of drinking water from centralized sources in the city of Vladimir for compliance with hygienic standards.

Materials and methods: Water from intake sources, before supply to the distribution system, and in the tap was tested for compliance with water quality standards. We used the results of measuring 17 water quality parameters by the accredited chemical laboratory of the Water Quality Control Center of “Vladimirvodokanal” for 2019–2023 and our own results of testing 9 water samples, three samples per district, for 20 quality indicators in the chemical laboratory of the Department of Biology and Ecology of the Vladimir State University in 2023. The “Kapel-205” capillary electrophoresis system was used to determine the ions; heavy metals were measured using the Spectroscan MAX-G X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. Other water quality parameters were established using methods of potentiometry, conductometry, and titrimetry. Classical methods of variation statistics were applied for data analysis in Microsoft Excel.

Results: We found that, depending on the source of water intake, the levels of fluoride ions and solids in some districts exceeded maximum allowable concentrations (mean values in the Leninsky district were 1.57 mg/dm3 and 7.54 mg-eq/dm3, respectively). At the same time, our findings for the ions of iron (0.007–0.028 mg/dm3), zinc (0.054–0.078 mg/dm3), copper (0.014–0.072 mg/dm3), cobalt (0.001 mg/dm3), potassium (the mean for the Leninsky district = 0.51 mg/dm3), sodium (the mean for the Leninsky district = 5.1 mg/dm3), and sulfate (the mean for the Frunzensky district = 18.08 mg/dm3) were below the lower limits of acceptable hygienic standards.

Conclusions: The quality of water from centralized sources of the city as a whole complies with the requirements of Russian Sanitary Rules and Norms SanPiN 2.1.3684–21, except for fluoride ions and solids; yet, it does not meet some acceptable hygienic standards. Artificial drinking water mineralization is recommended to the residents of the city of Vladimir to make up for possible deficiency of essential elements.

Introduction: Child and pre-reproductive mortality are the indicators of social well-being of the society and a valuable parameter in assessing health effects of parental occupational exposure in offspring.

Objective: To assess child and pre-reproductive mortality among the offspring of the workers of the Mayak Production Association, the first Russian nuclear facility.

Materials and methods: A retrospective epidemiological study was conducted in the town of Ozyorsk, the nearest to the facility closed administrative area, involving 24,780 children born in 1949–1973. The case group consisted of 14,435 children of Mayak PA workers while the control group comprised 10,345 children of unexposed parents. Child and prereproductive mortality rates were analyzed by sex, calendar periods of birth, disease, and age of parents at childbirth. Risk coefficients were calculated based on dose categories of parental occupational exposure to radiation.

Results: We observed higher rates of child and pre-reproductive mortality among the controls. Perinatal conditions and childhood infectious diseases made a considerable contribution to child and pre-reproductive mortality in both groups. Infections as a cause of death in the controls were statistically more frequent than in the offspring of the nuclear industry workers. The risk of death in the first five years of life and until the age of 15 in the case group was significantly lower in the parental age at childbirth categories of 21–25 and 31–35 years, which does not exclude an important role of initial health parameters of the parents and the level of social well-being of the families. The analysis of the relationship between parental accumulated absorbed doses of external gamma exposure at work and child and pre-reproductive mortality in the offspring showed no excess risk.

Conclusions: The results of studying child and pre-reproductive mortality among the offspring of Mayak workers gave no convincing evidence of radiation-induced health effects in the children born to the exposed parents.

Introduction: The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents has become a challenge in most countries of the world.

Objective: To develop regional standards for the body mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents in the city of Magadan in order to identify groups at risk of these conditions.

Materials and methods: We have analyzed data on 4,663 Magadan schoolchildren aged 8–17 involved in the survey conducted in 2009–2019. Based on the main anthropometric parameters of body height and weight, we calculated the body mass index (Quetelet II Height–Weight Index). The centile (nonparametric) method was used to determine healthy and abnormal BMI values.

Results: Distribution of body mass indices of the schoolchildren in Magadan by centile ranges of the regional standards showed the prevalence of mean values in 49.8 % of the subjects. BMI values indicating obesity or underweight, i.e. below the 3rd or above the 97th percentile, respectively, were found in 3.1–3.4 % of the examined. An increase in the proportion of overweight and obese children was observed when comparing our data with Russian norms. We established that the mean BMI values of the girls and 8 to 13-year-old boys living in Magadan exceeded the upper limit of the Russian norm (75th percentile) for children and adolescents. At the lower limit of the means (25th percentile), changes were within the range of the means, except for boys aged 16 to 17 years.

Conclusion: The use of region-specific BMI standards allows correct and timely identification of underweight and/or overweight/obese schoolchildren in order to carry out appropriate treatment and preventive measures.

Background: Improvement of the physical education curriculum for university students with disabilities is an important component of enhancing the quality of life of young people. Heart rate variability is one of the most informative and valid indicators of physical health allowing evaluation of the contribution of mechanisms regulating physiological functions and the cost of adaptation to learning and physical activity.

Objective: To examine the morphofunctional status and heart rate variability in female students with hearing impairment after finishing personal exercise programs.

Materials and methods: The main morphofunctional indicators were tested in 80 female university students aged 18–20 years, equally divided into case and control groups, including body height and weight, total and visceral fat, and blood pressure. Time and spectral analysis and variation pulsometry were used to establish heart rate variability in them.

Results: After finishing personal exercise programs by the end of the 2022/2023 academic year, the female students demonstrated a decrease in body fat mass (from 37 ± 2 to 32 ± 2 %), systolic blood pressure (from 138 ± 4 to 130 ± 3 mm Hg), and heart rate at rest (from 93 ± 2 to 85 ± 3 bpm). Their tension of the cardioregulatory systems declined (the stress index dropped from 217 ± 33 to 157 ± 28 c.u.), while the activity of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system and the autonomous circuit of heart rate regulation increased. The control group showed no significant changes by the end of the academic year but the body weight tended to decrease along with the total (from 38 ± 3 to 36 ± 2 %) and visceral fat (from 8 ± 1 to 6 ± 1 %).

Conclusion: The use of personal training programs compiled with account for individual morphofunctional and psychophysiological indicators helps improve physical health parameters of female students with disabilities.

Introduction: Good physical and mental health affects not only the quality of life of university teachers, but also, along with qualification, determines their successful job performance and, consequently, the quality of education of the future workforce of the country.

Objective: To assess the quality of life of medical university teachers.

Materials and methods: The study was conducted in April–May 2024 involving 86 medical university teachers (mean age = 45.8 years) and using the 36-item short form survey instrument (SF-36) to assess their quality of life. The data obtained were analyzed in Microsoft Excel with the results checked for normal distribution using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. The statistical significance of differences between male and female teachers was determined using the Student’s t-test or the Mann-Whitney U-test. The differences were considered statistically significant at p < 0.05.

Results: The score of physical functioning was high in both men (90.00 ± 4.12) and women (87.72 ± 1.85) while the remaining scores of physical and mental components were above average. Among them, the highest were those of role (physical) functioning (78.95 ± 8.61 for men and 80.97 ± 3.19 for women) and bodily pain (78.21 ± 5.14 for men and 80.63 ± 2.62 for women). The scores of vitality (68.68 ± 4.01 for men and 67.49 ± 2.20 for women) and mental health (68.00 ± 5.71 for men and 68.24 ± 2.19 for women) were the lowest.

Conclusions: Rapid transformation of working conditions of university teachers affects their physical and mental health and influences the quality of life. Timely assessment of the latter is necessary for elaboration of appropriate preventive measures aimed at extending their working life and maintaining high essential teaching skills.

Introduction: Enterovirus infection is a recurring annual healthcare challenge in the Russian Federation and other countries of the world. In 2023, its incidence rate (33.9 %000) in the constituents of the Siberian Federal District was 2.7 times higher than the long-term average.

Objective: To analyze the incidence of enterovirus infection in the Irkutsk Region in 2023.

Materials and methods: We analyzed statistics on monthly and annual incidence of enterovirus infection in the Irkutsk Region in 2011 to 2023 and calculated long-term average monthly incidence rates and the upper limit of year-round incidence in Microsoft Excel 2013. The type of enteroviruses in patients’ clinical samples was determined by sequencing.

Results: Compared to the previous year, the incidence of enterovirus infection in the Irkutsk Region in 2023 rose by 46.9 %. The main clinical form was herpangina (39.9 %), followed by hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) (28.9 %). Over the previous two years, most enterovirus diseases were registered in children aged 1–2 years, while the proportion of cases among children aged 7–14 years demonstrated a 1.5-fold increase (24.6 %). Enterovirus A dominated in the structure of typed enteroviruses (56.7 %), among which coxsackievirus A6 ranked first. Nucleotide sequences of human enterovirus B were obtained in 36.1 % of cases, of which ECHO30 (31.4 %) and coxsackievirus A9 (28.5 %) prevailed.

Conclusion: Changes in the incidence of enterovirus infection in the Irkutsk Region observed in 2016–2019 and in the year 2023 were most likely related to the circulation of coxsackievirus A6 in the population. Importation of a new ECHO30 variant to the Irkutsk Region from other territories of the Russian Federation might have contributed to the increase in the number of cases of enterovirus meningitis.