Environment and population health

The environment is one of the most important determinants of human health. In the conditions of degradation of natural ecosystems, compensatory and adaptive opportunities of a human body are in a dangerous contradiction with sharply increased inquiries to its adaptive reactions and physiological reserves of an organism. Therefore World Health Organization developed the system of indicators of “ecological health” on various adverse factors of the environment. Monitoring of such indicators and the analysis of country indicators allows to estimate efficiency of environmental policy in these or those territories. On a key indicator — number of additional cases of death because of pollution of atmospheric air — the situation in Russia approximately coincides with estimates across Europe. However there is rather large number of settlements with higher level of pollution of atmospheric air, than an average value about the country. These are the cities with the large metallurgical enterprises and also settlements where the unsatisfactory quality of the air environment is connected with primary use as coal fuel.