Science Of Hygiene Research Articles

Social hygiene in Germany in the early twentieth century: Science subject and methodology

Introduction. At the beginning of the 20th century, the theory of social hygiene was widely recognized worldwide. This science’s birthplace is Germany, and its founder is Alfred Grotjahn. In 1904, he presented a scientific concept of social hygiene, including a new hygienic science, field of study, subject, methodology, and scientific methods. Purpose. This study examines the scientific approaches to social hygiene in German academic literature from the early 1900s to the late 1920s. Materials and methods. This study gathered the necessary data by comprehensively reviewing key German manuals and periodic annual compilations. Results. A. Grotjahn viewed social hygiene as a science combining descriptive and normative approaches. By social hygiene, he meant the study of conditions affecting the social hygiene culture of individuals about place, time, and social environment, as well as their offspring. The descriptive component of the science aims to analyze these conditions, while the normative side investigates measures to improve hygienic culture among individuals and their offspring. He proposed to apply the probability theory as a scientific methodology and utilized the scientific methods of statistics, economics, history, sociology, and politics. Until the 1920s, German social hygienists followed Grotjahn’s theory in their manuals. In the mid-1920s, Ferdinand Huppe introduced the concept of constitutional hygiene theory in a multi-volume handbook of social hygiene. It was based on the methods of biology and the principles of racial hygiene. Conclusion. Grotjahn’s scientific concept of social hygiene underwent significant changes and evolution in the early twentieth century. These transformations, which were influenced by introducing new theories and applying different scientific methods, are crucial to understanding the development of social hygiene as a discipline.

Ilya Mechnikov's theory of orthobiosis: the potential of European integration of national education

The article presents the result of a retrospective analysis of the theory of orthobiosis. This topic is valuable for the development of programs for expanding connections with the world in the process of communication and other ways of communication in specific historical realities, social falsification of participants in the educational process.
 The research was conducted according to an individual approach. The authors focused attention on the processes of interaction, when the scientist's scientific conclusions were formed as a result of deep spiritual connections with others, an active attitude to the world. The article states that the author's personal hobbies are organically interpreted in the theory of orthobiosis developed by the scientist. In the theory of orthobiosis, the change of nodal positions of the scientist is systematically followed depending on the conditions of human formation in different age periods, taking into account the peculiarities of the components of the psyche, psychophysiological development in a certain age period.
 The authors emphasized that Ilya Mechnikov understood orthobiosis as follows: the order and order of life, which is based on the science of hygiene. This order provides a person with a long, active, pain-free life. In this way, a person can not only establish the rules of social and psychological existence, but also systematically develop and manifest his natural strengths, abilities, and talents. Such a life gives a feeling of saturation, ends with a natural death that does not cause fear. A component of orthobiosis is a reasonable, prudent attitude of the individual to the issue of procreation, conscious parenthood. In this, the authors see the relevance of studying the field of conscious social in the individual through the analysis of personal structures, the ability to be active in the spiritual sphere.
 The article states that I. Mechnikov considered in detail the problem of forming the moral behavior of an individual. In the context of orthobiosis, morality should be reinforced through mastery of encyclopedic knowledge, deep education, conscious activity of social life, critical thinking in the perception of scientific truths.

Comprehensive hygienic assessment of the environmental physical factors at the workplaces of medical workers

Introduction. Occupational health of medical workers is an intensively studied field of hygienic science. This is due to the high incidence of medical workers, which exceeds the average for sectors of the economy. The presented study uses a risk-based approach for a comprehensive assessment of the influence of physical factors on medical workers working with a large number of electronic medical equipment: physiotherapists, clinical laboratory diagnostics doctors, and ultrasound diagnostics doctors. Materials and methods. Studies of adverse factors of working environment factors were carried out in 4 medical institutions of the Altai Territory and the Novosibirsk Region. Based on the obtained results the values of health risk were calculated and a class of working conditions was established for all the studied jobs. Results. At the first stage, a hygienic assessment of working conditions at the workplaces of medical workers was conducted. The largest number of jobs did not meet sanitary standards for the following indicators: air temperature of the working area (55.6% of all jobs), artificial light (84.5%), light pulsation coefficient (46.7%), concentration of aero ions of negative polarity (57,8%), the coefficient of unipolarity (80%). In addition, a class of working conditions was established at each of the studied jobs (obtained in the range from 2 to 3.4). The estimated health risk of workers from exposure to gamma radiation varied from negligible to moderate. Limitations. Exposures to many of the physical factors in the workplace are approximate based on a typical work day for an employee by department and profession. Conclusion. An assessment of the harmful effects of physical factors at various workplaces in medical institutions heterogeneous for their purpose revealed similar violations in terms of microclimate parameters, illumination, air ion composition and electromagnetic fields from computer monitors, which is consistent with data obtained by previous researchers in this area. It seems necessary to implement a system of preventive measures for employees in medical organizations based on the concept of professional risk analysis with a review of the results each year, taking into account the worked experience.

S. A. Tomilin on the issue of placement of human personality and its health in social hygiene

The article discusses the placement of personality and its health in early Soviet social hygiene. It is demonstrated that central position was assigned to analysis of integrated arrays of health statistical data of total population and its large groups. The individual health of personality as research object was shifted to periphery of interests of social hygienic science. On the example of works of S. A. Tomilin, the potential areas of enhancement of social hygienic comprehension of human health problematic are established.

ORIGINS OF FORMATION OF KYIV SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL: FROM THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, MEDICAL POLICE AND SANITARY STATISTICS TO SOCIAL MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

The aim of the work is to study the stages of formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific school, the contribution of its founders to the development of medical and social scientific direction.
 Materials and methods. The source base consisted of published scientific papers and archive materials. The historical-bibliographic method has been used in this work.
 Results. The formation and development of the Kyiv social and hygienic school has deep historical roots, beginning with the scientific achievements of many generations of researchers, which were generalized and transformed into the discipline of "state medicine" and began to be taught at the department of state medicine at St. Vladimir's University in Kyiv, and later – at the department of hygiene, medical police, medical geography and statistics. Teaching of medical and social issues continued for a long time at multidisciplinary departments. Prominent hygienists contributed to the formation of the socio-hygienic scientific direction, including professors Subbotin V.A. and Orlov V.D., who highly appreciated the importance of statistics, epidemiology and organization of health work, contributed to their teaching within the training programs for future doctors. A decisive role in the formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific School was played by Professor Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V., who is considered to be its founder. The course on epidemiology and sanitary statistics developed by him in 1903 and the course "Fundamentals of Social Hygiene and Public Medicine" in 1906 laid a solid foundation for the progressive development of social and hygienic science in Ukraine, helped to establish its theoretical principles, substantiate its content, and improve methodology. Consistent advocacy by scientists of scientifically sound results of socio-hygienic research has often led to his persecution and harassment by the authorities. Insistence of Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V. on the differentiation of the social and hygienic direction and the creation of a separate department, the mandatory teaching of social hygiene in higher medical education has been crucial for further establishment of departments of social medicine, training of scientific personnel and health professionals.
 Conclusion. The path of formation of the Kyiv social and hygienic scientific school, which was long, difficult and sometimes tragic, constitutes evidence of the progressive development of social hygiene in Ukraine, highlights the trajectory of the medical and social direction, the role of prominent personalities, especially Korchak-Chepurkivsky O.V. in the formation of conceptual principles and content of social hygiene, training of scientific and pedagogical staff, who continued the work that he started.

Development of fundamental and applied research in the field of food hygiene

The review summarizes the directions of the results of scientific activities of the Department of Food Hygiene of the Federal Scientific Center for Hygiene named after F.F. Erisman of the Federal Service for Supervision in Protection of the Rights of Consumer and Man Wellbeing. Since the day of its foundation, the employees have been working on the examination of food products, the development of methods for the study of food and ready-made meals, the prevention of food poisoning of bacterial and non-bacterial aetiology, as well as the hygienic assessment and control of the produced utensils and containers. Based on the department, capital studies were carried out to study and rationalize the nutrition of certain groups of the population: industrial workers (engaged in the development of coal mines, working at metallurgical and mining enterprises, etc.), children and adolescents of various institutions. The article highlights the main directions of work on the study and development of methods for hygienic and chemical research of public catering and food industry products, on the hygienic assessment of pesticides and new methods of food processing technology. Attention is paid to studies on establishing migration patterns and deciphering the mechanisms of biological action of toxic substances released from materials in contact with food. A significant contribution was the scientific substantiation of hygienic food system optimization using preventive foods for contingents of persons in extreme environmental conditions, including astronauts. The result of the research was the development of medico-biological requirements for specialized products intended for feeding people in extreme conditions of space flight and wounded with damage to the skeletal system. The works of the outstanding employees of the department have made a significant contribution to the science of hygiene and sanitary practice.

Hygienic assessment of the skin-resorptive effect of xenobiotics (literature review)

The basis of safety for working with chemicals, including pesticides, is to minimize contact with them and prevent them from entering the body by inhalation and dermal route, sometimes in actual production conditions, the skin pathway can be more dangerous. The most studied inhalation route of harmful substances entering the body of a working person is confirmed by an extensive evidence base, the presence of regulatory and methodological documents, experimentally established and approved MPC in the air of the occupational area for 2484 substances, and 601 substances included in SanPiN 1.2.3685-211. The maximum permissible levels (MPL) on the skin are presented for only 26 substances in the same document. Identification and evaluation of the skin-resorptive effect of xenobiotics have methodological features due to the properties of the skin, which performs a barrier-protective function, and the physico-chemical, toxic properties of substances. The main stages of development in the domestic hygienic science and practice of research on the study and assessment of the skin-resorptive effect of xenobiotics in industrial contact with them are presented. The continuity of research on the study and evaluation of the skin-resorptive impact of chemicals used in various industries and agriculture is shown, making it possible to develop methodological approaches to the identification and risk assessment of dermal absorption of xenobiotics, including pesticides, within the organisms of workers. Evaluating the risk of skin contamination is the main argument for the development of measures for the primary prevention of skin resorptive action. Establishing the priority of the dermal route of toxicant intake is an evidence-based justification for making decisions about the possibility of using, for example, pesticides on the territory of the Russian Federation. The literature review is based on open sources hosted on virtual database platforms: Scopus, Web of Science, MedLine, Global Health, e-LIBRARY, Electronic Fund of Legal and Regulatory Documents, etc.

Николай Кудрицкий: от земского врача — до профессора

В статье представлены трагический жизненный путь, врачебная, научная, педагогическая и общественная деятельность профессора-гигиениста Николая Антоновича Кудрицкого. Отражен его вклад в развитие украинской гигиенической школы, создание направления «школьная гигиена». Особое внимание уделено началу профессиональной деятельности ученого в местечке Петриковка Екатеринославской губернии — нынешней Днепропетровщины-Сичеславщины.

Problems and prospects of using evidence-based medicine in hygiene (systematic review)

In the modern world, the principles and methods of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM)) are the recognised basis for the development of Medicine despite the existing barriers to its implementation. EBM was formed and developed within the framework of its medical direction. In preventive medicine, the adoption of the term EBM was not accompanied by the development of appropriate definitions, standards, methods, and regulatory documents. This article discusses the problems and prospects for the development of EBM in hygienic science and practice. The authors conducted an independent screening of the frequency of publications on Preventive Medicine using the terms and provisions of EBM over the past ten years in the RSCI and MEDLINE (PubMed). The number of publications in English - language sources was found to exceed domestic ones by 45.5-139 times on all issues of EBM. In the RSCI, publications related to EBM in the preventive direction of Medicine accounted for 28 % of the total publications on EBM, in MEDLINE- 45 percentage. The data obtained indicate a more occasional use of the principles of EBM in domestic Medicine, especially in relation to preventive Medicine. Taking into account the experience of EBM in clinical Medicine, the article defines EBM, presents the stages of the EBM methodology, a variant of the hierarchy of evidence, and ideal characteristics of surrogate outcomes for preventive Medicine. For most hygiene problems, systematic reviews and meta-analyses will be the most evidence-based. The use of EBM was indicated to be impossible without understanding the fundamental principles and the correct application of biostatistics. Approaches to the classification, evaluation, development, and examination of clinical practice guidelines based on the principles of EBM, abroad and in Russia, and the possibility of their use for regulatory and methodological documents to ensure sanitary and epidemiological well-being are considered.

Mens sana in corpore sano

The article deals with the concept put forward by the professor of Kharkov University I.P. Skvortsov, according to which the health of the people, the preservation of which depends on the observance of hygiene standards, is the most important criterion of civilization. It is shown that the beginnings of the future hygienic science existed already in the days of Ancient Greece.

London’s Uncertain Comforts: Fuegian Travelers and the Indeterminate Geography of Climate and Health

The phenomenon John Crowley calls the “invention” of comfort was shaped by European urbanization and demographic upheaval, namely the movements and crowding together of ever larger numbers of people into metropolitan centers in temperate regions such as London, Paris, and New York. From these centers, concentrations of scholarship, techno-scientific expertise, and capital supported colonial and commercial exploits abroad and fostered knowledge of other climatic regions and the indigenous peoples encountered there. Likewise, the notoriety of native arrivals in European capitals (voluntarily or not) reinforced geographical and exhibitionary impulses, inviting comparison today to medical topography, a discipline that emerged in the 1820s to link geography, climate, race, and disease onwards. The field was based on the theories of Parmenides and Aristotle, whereby the globe was divided into distinct climatic zones that determined the character of human beings found there. It was a doctrine supporting comparative anatomy and scientific racism, according to which regions of extreme temperature and weather were called to account for seemingly “abnormal” physiognomies and sensory faculties observed among some of the natives who were paraded around European streets, theatres and intellectual arena. The cumulative record of these encounters demonstrates the contributing role of global mobility to the geographical reasoning behind these and successive period discourses.The story of the indigenous Yamana Jemmy Button, his arrival in London from Tierra del Fuego in 1830 and his subsequent return to the cold, windswept region a year later, is recounted here to bring multiple sources of historical and theoretical elucidation (voyage narratives, medical and climate theory, environmental history, architectural theory, and others) to bear on the invention of comfort. The article aims to enlarge John Crowley’s thesis, specifically what he sees to be the contribution of spectacle and material culture to comfort’s social construction. It identifies caveats to the deterministic scope of geography that were posed by nineteenth-century hygienic science and immunology and by the accumulating store of observation-based studies of climate and weather. These developments connected disease to human populations, urban settings, and buildings in nuanced, environmentally-attuned ways. The article concludes by proposing the particular relevance of naval history and world-voyaging ships for these developments, including the roles played by vessels like the H.M.S. Beagle which conveyed the Fuegians to England and back again.

Contemporary challenges and ways to improve health risk assessment and management

We analyzed basic trends in improving risk assessment and management in Russia taking into account international experience; these trends arise from needs occurring in contemporary hygienic science and necessity to provide stronger resistance against new threats to population health. We substantiated specific tasks in development of health risk analysis mythology basing on preconditions for finding solutions to them in Russia; we also determined practical issues in its implementation that are the most vital and need solutions in the nearest future in order to eliminate adverse impacts on the environment and population health. The primary results are creation of a long-term strategy for the development of health risk analysis principles that takes into account the latest scientific data and is aimed at solving the following methodological and practical tasks: implementation of a systemic approach in estimating carcinogenic / non-carcinogenic risks; development of a unified approach to accomplishing toxicological «dose – response» examinations and interpreting their results which will take into account background morbidity and background dose burdens and determine susceptible population groups and behavioral models; threshold levels obtained via determining «benchmark» concentrations taking spontaneous background into account in order to determine new RfD and RfC and revise existing ones; use of micronvironmental approach in exposure estimation; use of risk assessment methodology in BAT parameters implementation for providing control over health safety after new approaches aimed at reducing emissions have been implemented in environmental protection. The necessity to improve approaches to health risk assessment and management and tasks solved within the process have been taken into account when the Branch scientific research program for 2021–2025 was developed by Rospotrebnadzor.

Современные вызовы и пути совершенствования оценки и управления рисками здоровью населения

We analyzed basic trends in improving risk assessment and management in Russia taking into account international experience; these trends arise from needs occurring in contemporary hygienic science and necessity to provide stronger resistance against new threats to population health. We substantiated specific tasks in development of health risk analysis mythology basing on preconditions for finding solutions to them in Russia; we also determined practical issues in its implementation that are the most vital and need solutions in the nearest future in order to eliminate adverse impacts on the environment and population health. The primary results are creation of a long-term strategy for the development of health risk analysis principles that takes into account the latest scientific data and is aimed at solving the following methodological and practical tasks: implementation of a systemic approach in estimating carcinogenic / non-carcinogenic risks; development of a unified approach to accomplishing toxicological «dose – response» examinations and interpreting their results which will take into account background morbidity and background dose burdens and determine susceptible population groups and behavioral models; threshold levels obtained via determining «benchmark» concentrations taking spontaneous background into account in order to determine new RfD and RfC and revise existing ones; use of micronvironmental approach in exposure estimation; use of risk assessment methodology in BAT parameters implementation for providing control over health safety after new approaches aimed at reducing emissions have been implemented in environmental protection. The necessity to improve approaches to health risk assessment and management and tasks solved within the process have been taken into account when the Branch scientific research program for 2021–2025 was developed by Rospotrebnadzor.

After Pettenkofer. Munich’s Institute of Hygiene and the long shadow of National Socialism, 1894–1974

The year 2019 marked the 140th anniversary of the inauguration of the first Institute of Hygiene, which was established for Max von Pettenkofer at the university of Munich. After Pettenkofer, his successors tried to advance the science of hygiene each in their own specific way, highlighting different aspects and trying to relate them to Pettenkofer’s legacy: Max von Gruber promoted an understanding of hygiene which was more and more tied to constitutional and racial factors, Karl Kisskalt tried to revise a perceived bacteriological paradigm, and Hermann Eyer focused on preventive public health measures. All of those influences had a more or less explicit and distinct connection to the general development of German medicine in the first half of the 20th century and its culmination in National Socialist crimes. The history of Munich’s Institute of Hygiene after Pettenkofer illustrates the differing scientific and ideological paths this development pursued by the examples of its three long-term protagonists and their relationship to National Socialism.

Research of peculiarities of physicochemical indicators of water processed by reagent-free electrochemical method

The tendency to maintain anthropogenic load on the environment and in the hydrosphere in particular, poses new challenges and tasks to the science of food hygiene and water treatment for the growing problems of drinking water supply and water treatment for food production, where good quality water is a critical and essential raw material component of the food products. To the traditional requirements of ensuring the safety and physiological integrity of water in an environment where existing water treatment technologies have practically exhausted their possibilities of improvement and increase of efficiency, new factors have been added, connected with creation of fundamentally new possibilities of change of physicochemical and biomedical properties of water without any change of chemical composition by a number of physical reagent-free factors on water and its acquisition of its structural and energy state – a new and intensively studied phenomenon of nature. The main effect in this direction was the electrolysis of water in the diaphragm electrolyzer with the separation of the products of electrochemical reactions in the cathode (catholyte) and anode (anolyte) zones. Water in the process of electrochemical treatment acquires anomalous physicochemical and biological properties, first of all increase of chemical and biochemical activity, for which it was named the new class of substances - electrochemical activated water (ECAW). Today, such activated water has found practical application in hygienic medicine, in solving the increase in the biological value of drinking water and the creation of water with health properties. The study of the laws of electrochemical activation of water still does not lose its relevance and scientific and practical value, especially in the food industry.

Hygiene and Historiography

The article presents the attempts of German hygienist Karl Kisskalt to reformulate epidemiological theory in the first half of the twentieth century. Kisskalt became, as did many of his colleagues in German hygiene, a sharp critic of the narrow bacteriological explanation of illness and health, but found a rather peculiar path of coming to a broader understanding: the path of historiography. Being especially interested in the methodological aspects of medical research, Kisskalt applied quantitative as well as qualitative methods on a plethora of historical data in order to embrace all facets of sickness and pestilence. This approach led him back to the founder of scientific hygiene, Max von Pettenkofer. Pettenkofer and his classical rejection of bacteriology turned into a central reference of Kisskalt’s historical argument for a renewed approach towards epidemiology.

Methodological problems of noninfectious epidemiology and hygiene under chemical pollution of the environment

In modern conditions the base of the assurance of the safety of human being from harmful factors of environment is the hygienic rationing for the latters. The use of this methodological principle led to the considerable decline in the level of chemical pollution of environment objects. However tens of millions of Russians are exposed to the impact of chemicals above admissible hygienic level. There was noted the high prevalence and mortality rate due to noninfectious diseases of the population. The hygienic science needs to develop and introduce methodology of personification prevention on protection of the person against chemical environmental pollution.

SIX DECADES OF SCIENTIFIC SEARCH IN THE HYGIENE OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

60 years of the work of the Scientific and Research Institute of Hygiene and Health Protection of Children and Adolescents of the National Medical Research Center of Children’s Health provide an analysis of research directions, their achievements and their use in health care and education. A series of discoveries, basic and applied research in the field of hygiene of children and adolescents, ensuring the sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the children’s population allowed to substantiate the modern system of hygiene and child and adolescent health, prevention of the most common diseases, school-related diseases and conditions, including population and personalized levels, and effective technologies to ensure them. Effective models of medical care for students in educational institutions, the activities of schools that promote health have been developed. Fundamental guidelines have been prepared for physicians on the hygiene of children and adolescents, school medicine, and medical support for students in educational institutions. Primary in the development and improvement of the hygiene of children and adolescents are the following: modernization, re-equipment of material and technical base for research; attracting young, talented and dedicated researchers; ensuring safe life and adaptation of children and adolescents in the context of global digitalization, including safe goods and services for children and adolescents, as part of the new strategy fir the scientific and technological development of the country; constant monitoring of the development of hygienic science and correction of plans for basic and applied research in the field of hygiene and child and adolescent health.

The importance of sanitary microbiological indices in the evaluation of epidemiological safety of water use in conditions of chemical contamination of water

The increasing chemicalization of production and life leads to the pollution of water bodies by chemicals, the effect of which on the micro - and macro - organisms is poorly understood. This section of the study in sanitary bacteriology is becoming ever more topical and is an important task of modern hygienic science. One of complicacies of the study of the problem is related with the fact that the presence of only experimental data fails to be sufficient, as the impact of any given chemical substance on different bacteria in the experiment does not mean that under natural conditions, similar results will be obtained. One reason for this may be the inhibitory effect of the given chemical on biological properties of bacteria, while in field conditions in the water several chemicals interacting with each other can exist. In this regard, the aim of the work was to assess the indicator value of sanitary and microbiological indices of epidemic hazard of water use in conditions of chemical pollution of surface water bodies.

HYGIENIC ASPECTS OF THE INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL PERSON’S ADDICTION IN THE NEW REALITY

The spread of information technologies leads to negative consequences associated with the impact on the health of the individual and public health. There are new behavioral addictions, namely information and technological ones. The objective reasons for their occurrence are in the changes taking place in society. They are associated with the informatization and globalization of the post-industrial society. The criteria for excessive use of the Internet are changing. Virtual space appears as a significant part of life reality. Ubiquitous is the regular use of the Internet. Imposed by information technologies lifestyle and worldview can be destructive for the individual. The task of hygienic science is to prevent the psychological distress of a person in new conditions. The purpose of the article is to consider the views of a person’s Internet addiction, the risks, as well as the possibility of psychological distress resulting from the impact of information technologies. Comparative analysis of the views of various authors and their theoretical generalization. A current understanding of the phenomenon of information and technological dependencies is presented. Two conceptual approaches to the consideration of the phenomenon are identified: as a mental pathology and as a person’s state in the continuum of his normal behavior in new life realities. Statistical data characterizing the penetration of social networks into Russian society and quantitative characteristics of the use of the Internet are given. Computer technologies can be a “mental retreat” for humans. However, social networks provide users with isolation in their own socio-cultural shells. The boundaries of the norms and pathologies of Internet use have changed. Indices of overgrowing of enthusiasm for the Internet in addiction are a change in the motives and goals of its use. A risk factor for the psychological well-being of a person is an exposure to manipulative informational influences on the Internet. Social networks are the space and means of such exposure. Conclusion. The difference between healthy and unhealthy use of the Network is given. The danger for the majority of Internet users was shown not to be an addiction, but exposure to information and psychological effects. It is revealed that in social networks there is a possibility of targeted impacts.