[Human health risk upon air exposure to chemicals in enclosed spaces and residential areas of an industrial town].

The study determined priority chemicals in the ambient air and air of enclosed spaces of the town's administrative districts, by taking into account the formation of a community health risk. The industrial town's areas were ranked by the hazard of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects caused by the varying intraenvironmental distribution of substances. The distribution of pollutants in the study areas with varying anthropogenic exposures allows one to consider suspended matter, cadmium, nickel, and formaldehyde in the air of residential areas and formaldehyde, phenol, and suspended matter in the air of enclosed spaces as universal markers of exposure for dwelling environmental factors in the identification of toxicants and in the assessment of community health risk within the framework of sociohygienic monitoring and as indicators for the assessment of the immediate and final results of purpose-oriented departmental programs.

[Assessment of human health risk upon acute inhalational exposure to chemical substances].

To provide the safety of the population and environment with the occurrence of man-caused catastrophes due their increase is now an urgent problem. Toxic hazard coefficients were calculated for hydrogen sulfide in the settlements located in a possible chemical pollution area in the Orenburg gas-chemical complex. Assessment of the hazard of toxic effects to the population upon exposure to hydrogen sulfide has indicated that there may be toxic effects in the inhabitants of the study nearby inhabited localities. The findings do not characterize the possible severity of intoxication so it is necessary to develop a system of criteria for the differentiation of the severity of negative effects in order to evaluate the hazard of acute chemical exposures.

[An evaluation of acute effects of sulfur compounds for the human organism in natural gas fields emergencies (review)]. / Problema otsenki ostrogo vozdeistviia soedinenii sery na organizm cheloveka pri avariinykh situatsiiakh na mestorozhdeniiakh prirodnogo gaza (obzor).

A trend towards a growing number of emergency situations at industrial enterprises has been recently traced throughout the world. The main reasons of such phenomenon are: a comprehensive use of highly dangerous technologies and materials; large-scale violations of the operational rules and norms; and an inadmissibly high wear-and-tear of the main production funds in economic branches with extra risk. The world experience is indicative of a high degree of danger related with exploiting the natural-gas fields with a high content of sulfur compounds. The occurrence of emergency situations in the mentioned fields is accompanied by development of acute and sub-acute toxic effects in the workers and population. It necessitated, recently, an elaboration of a concept of a relative safety, in view of an unfavorable impact produced by chemical substances in emergencies, and an elaboration of methods applicable to the evaluation of emergency regulations.

[Estimating the hazard of toxic exposure of the population living in the area of the Orenburg gas-chemical complex to specific pollutants]. / Otsenka opasnosti toksicheskogo vozdeistviia spetsificheskikh polliutantov na naselenie, prozhivaiushchee v zone Orenburgskogo gazokhimicheskogo kompleksa.

Health anomalies in children are induced by environmental contamination with pollutants specific for this region due to the long-term running of the Orenburg gas-chemical complex. On assessing the health hazard of exposure to non-carcinogenic chemicals, the authors used such variable as the hazard coefficient. Estimations indicated that the hazard coefficient of non-carcinogenic effects was greater than the allowable level with reference to hydrogen sulfide in all areas under study, as shown by the data of stationary posts. According to the data of route studies, the hazard coefficient exceeded 1 with reference to hydrogen sulfide and nitrogen dioxide. Thus, upon exposure to specific air pollutants, such hydrogen sulfide and nitrogen dioxide, even at the concentrations below the maximum allowable concentration there is an increased hazard of their toxic effect on the population.

[Hygienic assessment of ambient air pollution in rural localities in the area exposed to effluents of the Orenburg gas-field complex]. / Gigienicheskaia otsenka zagriazneniia atmosfernogo vozdukha sel'skikh naselennykh punktov v zone vliianiia vybrosa Orenburgskogo gazopromyslovogo upravleniia.

A complex analysis suggests that there has been an increase in airogenic load on the population living in an area exposed to gas waste from the Orenburg gas-field complex at the expense of nitrogen dioxide, which may be associated with its higher levels in the waste from 1058.3 tons/year in 1996 to 2084.89 tons/year in 2000 and with the maximum effluent of 2550.79 tons/year in 1999. The study has revealed that the rural locality with the greatest aerogenic load is the village of Dedurovka.