[Monitoring of the medicodemographic situation in Moscow].

There has been recently a trend in declining mortality rates in all population groups. Higher birth rates and lower mortality have been responsible for a reduction in natural population loss in Moscow. At the same time, 14 of the 123 Moscow municipal districts show a positive natural population growth largely due to higher birth rates. Better social and economic living conditions, the effective activities of health care bodies and sanitary and epidemiological well-being services of the city have caused recent positive changes in the demographic situation.

[Impact of chemical ambient air pollution in Moscow on its population's health].

The ambient atmosphere of Moscow is appraised as unbeneficial to the health of the population, that of children and adolescents in particular. Motor transport is a powerful source of the ambient air pollution of Moscow. The average annual level of atmospheric pollution in 2008 is considered to be moderate. Scientific-and-practical studies using the risk assessment methodology also suggest that the ambient air in Moscow is the leading habitat posing a carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk to Muscovites' health.

[Morbidity as a criterion for the evaluation of the impact of motor transport on the health of Moscow's population]. / Zabolevaemost' kak kriterii otsenki vliianiia avtotransporta na zdorov'e naseleniia Moskvy.

The paper presents data on motor transport pollution of the ambient air. From 1986 to 1996, the number of cars increased from 600,000 to 2,000,000, in Moscow the pollution index rose from 1.0 to 9.0. Motor transport is a source of noise and its proportion in the total noise is as high as 80%. In 1996, the noise threshold was 78-88 dBA. On the whole, the noise levels have increased by 5-6 dBA in the past decade. Experts' estimates indicate that 70-80% of Moscow inhabitants live in the areas of acoustic discomfort made by transport vehicles. Since the early 1990s, i.e. when the number of transport vehicles began drastically increasing, there has been an increase in the incidence of coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases whose risk factors include noise and atmospheric pollution. Their incidence is on the rise every year, the changes in their rates correlate with increase in the number of motor vehicles and the atmospheric pollution index. The morbidity rates for chronic respiratory diseases in children and adults are presented, they are closely related to the increased number of cars and the higher index of atmospheric pollution. In the past 6 years, the total morbidity in infants of the first year of life has increased by 40%; the incidence of diseases of the nervous system, sense organs, and blood has shown a 1.5-fold increase, that of congenital malformations has twice grown. Poorer health in infants under 1 year is associated with the health in infants under 1 year is associated with the health of their mothers exposed to motor transport discharges. The findings strongly suggest that motor transport has an adverse effect on the population of Moscow and support that health of different populations is a criterion of sanitary and epidemiological well-being.