Hygiene and health research and adolescent health assessment: a new approach

Abstract

One of the most important indicators in the epidemiological studies of a particular population are the health stats for children and adolescents. The impact that environmental and behavioral factors on a single health characteristic is studied globally. However, there is a deficit of research studying comprehensive methods to health assessment. Therefore, the aim of our study is to develop just such a method of assessing health comprehensively. The psycho-physiological health characteristics of adolescents residing in the city of Kyiv and aged 12–15 years (n = 98), whose parents gave an informed consent for this study, have been studied. The construction of the comprehensive health index is based on a grouping of objective and subjective characteristics of health. We took into account blood pressure, pulse, body mass index, hand strength, hemoglobin oxygen saturation level and the level of well-being, normalizing them in the range from 0 to 1 and obtaining an integral estimate, as the average of all the components. In quantitative form, the indicator has a normal distribution and can be used as a variant in parametric statistical calculations. For non-parametric statistical methods, health index is proposed to be normalized on the interquartile range. Such a comprehensive health indicator can be the basis, upon which epidemiological studies are founded and to determine the preventive measures at different levels from individuals to populations. Keywords: adolescent health, comprehensive health indicator, health assessment methodology, direct and indirect health indicators, epidemiological studies. For citation: Polka NS, Hozak SV, Yelizarova OT, Stankevych TV, Parats AM. Hygiene and health research and adolescent health assessment: a new approach. Journal of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine. 2019;25(3):337–9