Cytological indices of the mucous membranes and the adaptation’s state of children living in the neighborhood of the enterprise — odor source

The work of a number of enterprises is known to be accompanied with emissions into the air of complex multicomponent mixtures with a specific smell, the obsessive effect of which can cause complaints of the population, including various health problems. As a rule, abroad in these cases, only the level of psychological stress (“annoyance”) is evaluated without an objective analysis of the health status, which necessitates the development of a methodology for such analysis. Therefore, the work uses a wide range of health assessment of children: the cytological status of the cheek mucosa on 13 indices, the distribution of children according to three stages of adaptation and medical examinations of specialists to determine the health groups of children in control preschool institutions and preschool institutions located near the enterprise for the production of chewing gum. According to the research of cytological status using the non-invasive method, most of the indices did not differ significantly within the compared groups. The assessment of the health status according to the data of in-depth medical examination by specialists and the distribution by stages of adaptation allowed establishing certain differences in the studied indices in the children’s population, but these differences were assessed as preliminary. Earlier analytical studies have shown that many components forming specific odor emissions of the enterprise have an irritant effect on the mucous membranes of the eyes and upper respiratory tract. Meanwhile, all of them are in concentrations not exceeding their hygienic standards, which may cause the absence of the influence of a weak, barely noticeable odor (no more than 2 points) on the cytological status of children. The need to develop a comprehensive approach to the study of the mechanisms of the development of pathological conditions associated with odor, using multiparameter studies, including the analysis of psycho-emotional status, was shown.