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The evaluation of economic damage was implemented in relation to premature mortality of population of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the region with particular social economic and natural climatic conditions specific to territories of the North. The calculation of economic damage is based on methodology proposed by number of ministries of the Russian Federation and Rosstat in 2012. The presented evaluations and analysis of materials give an idea about total amount of economic damage because of mortality of population of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) which is necessary to consider during development of regional programs of decreasing of population mortality.

Objectives: Taranto, a city in south-eastern Italy, suffers serious environmental pollution from industrial sources. A previous cohort analysis found mortality excesses among neighbourhoods closest to industrial areas. Aim of this study was to investigate whether mortality also increased in other neighbourhoods compared to Apulia region., Methods: Standardized mortality ratios were computed. Number of deaths and of person-years at risk by neighbourhood came from the previous cohort study for 1998-2008 period. Reference population was Apulia region excluding Taranto province. A meta-analysis was conducted across less close neighbourhoods computing summary SMR estimates and evaluating heterogeneity., Results: For the entire city higher mortality values are confirmed for all causes, all malignant neoplasms and several specific sites, neurological, cardiac, respiratory and digestive diseases. High mortality values are not confined to neighbourhoods closest to industrial areas for lung cancer, cardiac, respiratory and digestive diseases, in both sexes, and among women for all malignant neoplasms and pancreatic cancer., Conclusions: Increased mortality risks can also be observed in Taranto neighbourhoods not directly adjacent to industrial areas. Spatial trend, impact of socio-economic factors and duration of residence should be further explored.

Many studies have examined the short-term effects of air pollution on frequency of daily mortality over the past two decades. However, information on the relationship between levels of fine particles (PM(2.5)) and daily mortality is relatively sparse due to limited availability of monitoring data. Further the results are inconsistent. This study was undertaken to determine whether there was an association between PM(2.5) levels and daily mortality rate in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a large industrial city with a tropical climate. Daily mortality rate, air pollution parameters, and weather data for Kaohsiung were obtained for the period from 2006 through 2008. The relative risk of daily mortality occurrence was estimated using a time-stratified case-crossover approach, controlling for (1) weather variables, (2) day of the week, (3) seasonality, and (4) long-term time trends. For the single-pollutant model (without adjustment for other pollutants), no significant effects were found between PM(2.5) and frequency of daily mortality on warm days (≥25°C). On cool days, PM(2.5) showed significant correlation with increased risk of mortality rate for all causes and circulatory diseases in single-pollutant model. There was no indication of an association between PM(2.5) and deaths due to respiratory diseases. The relationship appeared to be stronger on cool days. This study provided evidence of associations between short-term exposure to PM(2.5) and elevated risk of death for all cause and circulatory diseases.

Rationale: Cohort evidence linking long-term exposure to outdoor particulate air pollution and mortality has come largely from the United States. There is relatively little evidence from nationally representative cohorts in other countries., Objectives: To investigate the relationship between long-term exposure to a range of pollutants and causes of death in a national English cohort., Methods: A total of 835,607 patients aged 40-89 years registered with 205 general practices were followed from 2003-2007. Annual average concentrations in 2002 for particulate matter with a median aerodynamic diameter less than 10 (PM(10)) and less than 2.5 μm (PM(2.5)), nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)), ozone, and sulfur dioxide (SO(2)) at 1 km(2) resolution, estimated from emission-based models, were linked to residential postcode. Deaths (n = 83,103) were ascertained from linkage to death certificates, and hazard ratios (HRs) for all- and cause-specific mortality for pollutants were estimated for interquartile pollutant changes from Cox models adjusting for age, sex, smoking, body mass index, and area-level socioeconomic status markers., Measurements and Main Results: Residential concentrations of all pollutants except ozone were positively associated with all-cause mortality (HR, 1.02, 1.03, and 1.04 for PM(2.5), NO(2), and SO(2), respectively). Associations for PM(2.5), NO(2), and SO(2) were larger for respiratory deaths (HR, 1.09 each) and lung cancer (HR, 1.02, 1.06, and 1.05) but nearer unity for cardiovascular deaths (1.00, 1.00, and 1.04)., Conclusions: These results strengthen the evidence linking long-term ambient air pollution exposure to increased all-cause mortality. However, the stronger associations with respiratory mortality are not consistent with most US studies in which associations with cardiovascular causes of death tend to predominate.

Objective: To assess the effect of reductions in air pollution from biomass smoke on daily mortality., Design: Age stratified time series analysis of daily mortality with Poisson regression models adjusted for the effects of temperature, humidity, day of week, respiratory epidemics, and secular mortality trends, applied to an intervention and control community., Setting: Central Launceston, Australia, a town in which coordinated strategies were implemented to reduce pollution from wood smoke and central Hobart, a comparable city in which there were no specific air quality interventions., Participants: 67,000 residents of central Launceston and 148,000 residents of central Hobart (at 2001 census)., Interventions: Community education campaigns, enforcement of environmental regulations, and a wood heater replacement programme to reduce ambient pollution from residential wood stoves started in the winter of 2001., Main Outcome Measures: Changes in daily all cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality during the 6.5 year periods before and after June 2001 in Launceston and Hobart., Results: Mean daily wintertime concentration of PM(10) (particulate matter with particle size <10 µm diameter) fell from 44 µg/m(3) during 1994-2000 to 27 µg/m(3) during 2001-07 in Launceston. The period of improved air quality was associated with small non-significant reductions in annual mortality. In males the observed reductions in annual mortality were larger and significant for all cause (-11.4%, 95% confidence interval -19.2% to -2.9%; P=0.01), cardiovascular (-17.9%, -30.6% to -2.8%; P=0.02), and respiratory (-22.8%, -40.6% to 0.3%; P=0.05) mortality. In wintertime reductions in cardiovascular (-19.6%, -36.3% to 1.5%; P=0.06) and respiratory (-27.9%, -49.5% to 3.1%; P=0.07) mortality were of borderline significance (males and females combined). There were no significant changes in mortality in the control city of Hobart., Conclusions: Decreased air pollution from ambient biomass smoke was associated with reduced annual mortality in males and with reduced cardiovascular and respiratory mortality during winter months.

The article covers comparative analysis of mortality causes and levels among male able-bodied population in small and medium industrial cities of Murmansk region in accordance with specific enterprise forming a company city. Findings are that, if compared to Murmansk having no enterprise forming a company, other industrial cities in the region, situated in the same climate area, demonstrated higher levels of mortality among the male able-bodied population with the death causes associated etiologically to occupational hazards on the enterprises forming a company city.

Analysis of time rows (daily values of mortality, temperature and pollution of ambient air) proved that present climate warming in Moscow, more subnormally hot and cold days influences level of mortality with all causes except external - with cardiovascular diseases (IHD, angina pectoris, cerebrovascular diseases including cerebrovascular accidents), chronic diseases of lower respiratory tract including bronchial asthma - especially in older age group. Heat waves are associated with significantly increased mortality. Zone of temperature comfort for Moscow, associated with minimal mortality values, is within -20 to +20 C interval.

The paper describes a simulation model of the chronic influence of environmental factors on mortality. The relationship of the risk of death from environment-related causes with to influence of environmental factors is shown to be near-linear. A model is proposed to assess the environment by the mortality rates.

Morbidity rates were analyzed in adults residing in vicinity of a tungsten-molybdenum industrial complex. The structure of morbidity was examined in relation to the physiological role of a number of heavy metals that are the priority contaminants in this area and with the habits of the residential population. The incidence of diseases of the musculoskeletal system, connective tissue, and respiratory organs was significantly higher in the area adjacent to the complex. In the mid-highlands, there are low incidence rates of circulatory, digestive, and urogenital diseases, and neoplasms as compared with the republican rates.

A method is proposed to determine the efficacy of harmful agents, which is based on the assessment of a response of experimental animals by the mathematical-statistical methods formalizing the approaches accepted in hygienic toxicology. It makes it possible to introduce a more detailed classification of their efficacy in accordance with the respective rather strict criteria. This method unifies this procedure to a great extent, thus lowering the influence of subjective factors, which lets us correctly solve the task of establishing the hygienic regulations. The results of evaluation of the efficacy of two combinations of the concentrations of copper, iron, chromium, and zinc contained in the drinking water are given as an example.

Air quality data on trace metals, other constituents of PM2.5, and criteria air pollutants were used to examine relationships with long-term mortality in a cohort of male U.S. military veterans, along with data on vehicular traffic density (annual vehicle-miles traveled per unit of land area). The analysis used county-level environmental data for the period 1997-2002 and cohort mortality for 1997-2001. The proportional hazards model included individual data on age, race, smoking, body mass index, height, blood pressure, and selected interactions; contextual variables also controlled for climate, education, and income. In single-pollutant models, traffic density appears to be the most important predictor of survival, but potential contributions are also seen for NO2, NO3-, elemental carbon, nickel, and vanadium. The effects of the other main constituents of PM2.5, of crustal particles, and of peak levels of CO, O3, or SO2 appear to be less important. Traffic density is also consistently the most important environmental predictor in multiple-pollutant models, with combined relative risks up to about 1.2. However, from these findings it is not possible to discern which aspects of traffic (pollution, noise, stress) may be the most relevant to public health or whether an area-based predictor such as traffic density may have an inherent advantage over localized measures of ambient air quality. It is also possible that traffic density could be a marker for unmeasured pollutants or for geographic gradients per se. Pending resolution of these issues, including replication in other cohorts, it will be difficult to formulate additional cost-effective pollution control strategies that are likely to benefit public health.

Consistent evidence has shown a positive association between particulate matter with an aerodiameter of less than or equal to 10 mum (PM(10)) and daily mortality. Less is known about the modification of this association by factors measured at the individual level. The authors examined this question in a case-crossover study of 20 US cities. Mortality events (1.9 million) were obtained for nonaccidental, respiratory, heart disease, and stroke mortality between 1989 and 2000. PM(10) concentrations were obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency. The authors examined the modification of the PM(10)-mortality association by sociodemographics, location of death, season, and secondary diagnoses. They found different patterns of PM(10)-mortality associations by gender and age but no differences by race. The level of education was inversely related to the risk of mortality associated with PM(10). PM(10)-related, out-of-hospital deaths were more likely than were in-hospital deaths, as were those occurring during spring/fall versus summer/winter. A secondary diagnosis of diabetes modified the effect of PM(10) for respiratory and stroke mortality. Pneumonia was a positive effect modifier for deaths from all causes and stroke, while secondary stroke modified the effects for all-cause and respiratory deaths. The findings suggest that more attention must be paid to population characteristics to identify greater likelihood of exposures and susceptibility and, as a result, to improve policy making for air pollution standards.

Regularly published national reports on population health in Russian Federation, based on the results of statistic analyses and the data from hygienic and epidemiological studies, demonstrate associations between exposure to hazardous environmental factors and population morbidity. Research into correlations between exposure to such factors and population health status using extensive databases, makes it possible to obtain statistically significant results and put forward hypotheses for epidemiological studies. The aim of this research was to study the levels and dynamics of population mortality, and atmospheric air condition, as well as correlations between them in regional centers of Russian Federation. The study covers the period from 1985 through 1998.

The authors demonstrate the hygienic significance of Gompertc-Makeham model, which expresses age-dependent mortality of population, and use both theoretical concepts and statistical data to substantiate a hypothesis of an indicator significance of the model's free coefficient for environmental state evaluation. The model was approved using the data from the regions of Republic Kazakhstan.

Aims: the area of Gela (Sicily Italy) has been included by the Italian national law among the "areas of environmental concern", due to several industrial plants located in the area: a refinery, a petrolchemical plant and an industrial waste disposal. The aim of the study was to evaluate the health of residents in the area, through the analysis of the mortality registry and the hospital discharge records., Design: cause and gender specific indirect Standardized Mortality (1995-2000) and Morbidity (2001-2003) Ratios were computed, with 95% confidence intervals, using the population of surrounding municipalities as reference., Results: increases of malignant neoplasm of stomach, colon rectum, larynx, lung, bladder and non Hodgkin lymphoma were observed in the area, both in men and women. Moreover, an increased frequency of hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases and for respiratory diseases (acute and chronic diseases, asthma both among adults and among children) were observed. Excesses of pneumoconiosis among men and of renal diseases among women were also present., Conclusion: the excesses in mortality and morbidity observed in this study are consistent with previous findings and might partly be explained by occupational exposures. However, the excesses found among women suggest a possible role of environmental pollutants.

Numerous time-series studies have investigated the association between daily mortality and daily ambient particulate air pollution concentrations (PM). The consensus from these studies is that increases in PM are associated with increases in daily mortality. However, it may be that increases in PM only hasten the deaths of individuals in a small, frail subset of the population whose longevity is short even in the absence of particulate air pollution. This hypothesis has been termed mortality displacement or harvesting. Distributed lag models (DLM) have been used to explore mortality effects of air pollution that are spread over multiple days, and DLM coefficients have been proposed as indicators of mortality displacement. We investigate statistical properties of DLM coefficients in the context of mortality displacement using simulation studies with frail population models. Our simulations use actual PM time series, as well as actual weather time series included as confounders. Our simulations show that DLM coefficients can have large bias when the mean lifetime of individuals in the frail subset of the population is more than a few weeks, and that the magnitude of this bias increases as the mean lifetime of individuals in the frail subset of the population increases. We conclude that DLM coefficients may be misleading as an indicator of mortality displacement, in the context of the frail population models that we explored.

The attributive death rates due to ambient air pollution were estimated in the urban areas of Byelarus. Estimation used the data of daily atmospheric contamination monitoring made by the Main Hydrometereology Committee of Byelarus in 15 towns from 1990 to 1999. To establish a dose-response relationship, the results of the well-known investigations by Dockery were used, which covering prospective cohort studies in 6 towns of the USA, have demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between atmospheric pollution and mortality rates. In Byelarus, about 7.5 thousand premature deaths or 6% of the total annual death rates may be induced by atmospheric pollution. Possible factors that influence the accuracy of estimates are discussed in the paper.

The authors hold that the maximum allowable concentrations (MAC) established in Russia for some ambient air pollutants can adversely affect human health and that they are worthy of reconsideration. This opinion is based on the published results of epidemiological studies of Western investigators and on the authors' own data obtained from the analysis by the time series method for a relationship of daily variations of dust or gaseous ambient air pollution to the so-called acute mortality or for that of the variations to respiratory symptoms and to the values of the maximum expiratory flow rate in preschool with or without respiratory abnormalities in their history; from the cross analysis of an association of the characteristics of atmospheric contamination in 13 urban areas with the prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases in junior schoolchildren, which was established by a special questionnaire. Particular emphasis should be laid on the reconsideration of not only established values, but mainly on the principles in laying down MAC for dust particles. The Western practice in measuring and evaluating risks separately for fractions of particles of varying sizes should be assessed for its use in Russian conditions; however, the authors' experience argues for this practice.

Public health workers are challenged to address community health concerns believed to be related to environmental exposures. The challenge is heightened when there are multiple potential exposures and numerous health concerns. In a community in Washington State, we employed different approaches depending on the specificity of diagnosis and the relation of the disease to environmental exposures. For diseases with specific diagnoses and questionable associations with environmental exposures, we began by determining whether rates of disease were higher than expected. Different approaches were needed for three different health concerns. Major limitations were estimating community population counts and obtaining comparison rates from published literature. Despite limitations, epidemiologic data developed at a relatively low cost were useful in assisting the community in understanding its health status.

Tissues were analysed from 60 subjects deceased at the age of 18-82 (mean 49 years), inhabitants of the southwestern region of Poland (Legnica Copper Basin). Mean cadmium, zinc and copper concentrations determined by flame AAS were for renal cortex 41.8; 47.8 and 2.3 micrograms Me/g tissue, respectively. The respective levels in the liver were 2.3; 51.6 and 4.6 micrograms Me/g tissue (w.w.). A broad range of cadmium levels was found in renal cortex (4.2-129.3.micrograms/g), with the highest values in the 40-60 age group. The effect of tobacco smoking is more evident than in other countries: 26.3 micrograms/g in non-smokers vs. 54.6 micrograms/g in smokers. Similar proportions were found by computing the whole body burden of cadmium. Compared with other regions of Poland the environmental exposure of humans to cadmium is moderate, however, it is higher than in other European countries.