Sanitary-hygienic characteristics of health risk and clinical assessment of damage to health done to population living in a specific geochemical province under long-term exposure to arsenic introduced with drinking water

In Russia geochemical provinces where arsenic is found are located in Yakutia, Siberia, Transbaikalia region, the Primorye, in the Urals, and Chukotka. Our research goal was to give sanitary-hygienic characteristics of health risk and perform clinical assessment of health damage done to population living in a specific geochemical province under long-term exposure to arsenic introduced with drinking water. We conducted our research in settlements where increased arsenic concentrations were detected in drinking water taken from centralized water supply systems taking into account also hygienic standards for arsenic contents in non-centralized water sources; those increased concentrations were caused by the structure of deep underground layers in the earth crust. We applied a set of sanitary-hygienic techniques and performed clinical examination of 147 people living in a specific geochemical province. We detected excessive arsenic concentrations in drinking water taken from centralized water supply systems; those concentrations were equal to 50-86 MPC whereas arsenic contents didn’t exceed 1 MPC in water taken from non-centralized water sources...