Development of the risk analysis methodology given the current safety challenges for public health in the Russian Federation: Vital issues and prospects

Abstract

The contemporary socioeconomic situation creates multiple safety challenges in the Russian Federation including public health safety. These challenges cannot be ignored when formulating strategic tasks of health risk analysis within predictions of the socioeconomic development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030. Targeted development of the risk analysis methodology in the Russian Federation has provided solid grounds for successful solution of primary tasks related to providing sanitary-epidemiological wellbeing of the country population. It has created a platform for further improvement of activities performed by the Rospotrebnadzor in various spheres. This includes development and greater detailing of results obtained by examining how health risks occur under exposure to heterogeneous environmental factors and work-related ones considering their combined effects. Another significant trend is proactive development of methods for assessing and managing health risks associated with potentially hazardous factors of new technologies and products (nanotechnologies, new foods, etc.). Several fundamental aspects of risk analysis can be considered vital at the moment. This includes investigating mechanisms of risk occurrence; establishing regularities of risks of negative health outcomes with various severities under ongoing integration of body systems dysfunctions and considering capabilities of the body to recover its proper functioning and its adaptive resources; finding solutions to an issue associated with assessing additive properties of effects produced by risk factors including heterogeneous ones. Fundamental aspects of health risks analysis development are closely connected with an issue associated with formulating fundamentals of an information platform eligible for this methodology. It is impossible to achieve any development in investigating mechanisms of health risks occurrence under exposure to heterogeneous environmental factors and work-related ones without applying up-to-date investigation techniques, digital ones included. The existing safety challenges for public health in the Russian Federation include the necessity to protect public health in order to extend a period of economic activity of the population and to develop labor and economic potential of the country; high levels of adverse impacts on the public health exerted by chemical, physical, and biological environmental factors; insufficient ‘digital maturity’ of methods employed to predict threats and provide sanitary-epidemiological wellbeing of the population. Given all the aforementioned, it seems advisable to outline the following promising trends in the development of the health risk analysis methodology: developing the fundamentals the methodology is based on; enlarging practical use of health risk assessment results in everyday activities of the Rospotrebnadzor; creating an information platform and digitalizing health risk analysis; developing a methodology for substantiating effective preventive programs aimed at health risk management.