The Role of Medical and Social Factors in Health Formation of Primary School Children

Abstract

Background: Over the past decades, the relation between children’s health risks of medical and social factors has changed. In order to determine health effects of some medicosocial factors among primary school children we conducted a questionnaire-based survey of parents in different years. Materials and methods: The studies were conducted in schools of the city of Ufa in the years 2005 and 2017 and included 456 and 465 parents of primary school children, respectively. Results: We established statistically significant relationships between the analyzed medicosocial factors and children’s health. We noticed a decrease in the number of children with the least risk of developing a disease and an increase in the number of children at risk. We also observed some differences between the years of research in adverse health effects of occupational factors in mothers, alcohol consumption by mothers during the perinatal period, and living conditions. Along with the already known risk factors, we found that chronic diseases and tobacco smoking of the father of the unborn child played an important role in the health of schoolchildren. The survey demonstrated that in the year 2017 primary school children spent less time watching television but much more time on the computer than in 2005. Conclusions: A systematic study of medical and social factors is essential for establishing children’s health risk factors and developing appropriate preventive measures. Most risk factors associated with the lifestyle and living conditions are manageable and this fact emphasizes the importance of creating a healthy lifestyle of children and their parents.