[Development of a system for the early diagnosis and prevention of children's health changes caused by exposure to heavy metals].
At the moment, the making a diagnosis of an environment-induced disease in Russia is not routine and this is not relied on a rather evidence basis. Nevertheless, the choice of exposure methods from educational and preventive to therapeutic depends on the intensity and pattern of exposure to ecotoxicants and on the magnitude of appropriate specific changes. Epidemiological surveys of 5-7-year-old children from 3 towns of Russia have revealed that 8.3-24.5% of the children have moderate excesses of the allowable levels of lead in blood; 4.6-12.8% have excess hair magnesium levels, and 5.9-33.8% have excess hair copper levels. The real damage to the children's neuropsychic health manifests as a significant reduction in the memory and academic achievement indices, the parameters of fine and gross motor coordination, speech expressiveness, and in the rate of minor successive movements. The prevalence of environment-dependent neuropsychic malformations is 3-7%, as calculated with reference to all the children examined. The children aged 5-7 years are shown not to be in need of therapeutic measures in all the towns compared. At the same time, 61.1-83.2% of the children need neuropsychic health-promoting measures. For this, it is expedient to use informational and educational technologies. About 4.3-17.8 and 11.5 - 21.1% need primary and secondary preventive measures against environment-dependent neuropsychic changes. The authors present approaches to developing measures to promote neuropsychic health and to prevent neuropsychic malformations. There is evidence that primary prevention is more effective for the pediatric population. There is no question that multivariate analysis of the problems associated with childhood neuropsychic development, including environmental, behavioral, sociomedical components, is of importance. These approaches may be realized at the municipal level and taken as the basis for preparing national guidelines for the promotion of health and for the prevention of environment-dependent conditions in children.
Il'chenko
I N
IN
Bialkov
A I
AI
Syrtsova
L E
LE
Liapunov
S M
SM
Okina
O I
OI
D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D006304:Health Status; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007855:Lead Poisoning / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000032:analysis*; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012426:Russia / Q000453:epidemiology
D019216:Metals, Heavy