The potential for increasing the reliability of hygienic assessments based on a comparative analysis of risk and harm to health under the influence of environmental factors

Introduction. The large-scale responsibility of the Federal Service for Supervision in Protection of the Rights of Consumer and Man Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) for ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population requires improving methods of scientific analysis and forecasting to optimize management decisions.

The purpose of the work is to increase the reliability of hygienic assessments in the system of state regulation and control based on a comparative analysis of the results of assessing formalized risk and real harm to health under the influence of chemical environmental factors.

Materials and methods. A methodology has been developed for comparative analysis of the results of assessing the formalized (calculated) and realized risk (causing real harm) to the health of the exposed population. The implementation of the proposed approaches was carried out using the example of a comparative analysis of the results of assessing risk and harm to health during an in-depth medical examination of two hundred sixty eight 4–7 years children from the zone of aerogenic chemical exposure from emission sources of large metallurgical production. The comparison group included 98 unexposed 4–7 years children (2020–2022).

Results. There has been clarified the list of priority substances (8 components) for which there are critical violations of the mandatory requirements of sanitary legislation regarding the quality of atmospheric air (non-compliance with hygienic standards for nitrogen dioxide, manganese, nickel, inorganic fluorides, formaldehyde, aluminum, lead, sulfur dioxide), leading to real harm to health. The list of actual diseases identified as real harm caused (8 types) is specified — asthma with an allergic component, allergic rhinitis, chronic sinusitis, common variable immunodeficiency, cardiac dysfunction, nephrotic syndrome, atopic dermatitis.

Limitations. A comparative analysis was performed for 4-7 years children exposed to long-term aerogenic pollutants.

Conclusion. A conjugate comparative analysis of the results of assessing the formalized and realized risk (harm) to the health of the exposed population allows to effectively identifying the risks of violations of mandatory requirements of sanitary legislation, leading to harm (damage) to health and to substantiate indicators of risk (harm) to health caused as a result of violations of mandatory requirements for state regulation at the system level.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was approved by the local ethical committee of the Federal Scientific Center for Medical and Reservative Technologies for Risk Management of the Population of the Rospotrebnadzor (meeting protocol No. 2 dated 11.02.2021), and the Helsinki Declaration of the World Medical Association (as amended 2013) was carried out.

Contribution:
Zaitseva N.V. — concept and editing;
Zemlyanova M.A. — research design, comparative analysis, editing;
Koldibekova Yu.V. — collecting material and processing data, writing text.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: February 16, 2024 / Revised: April 5, 2024 / Accepted: April 9, 2024 / Published: June 17, 2024