The key task of human ecology in Russia
Velichkovskiĭ, B.T.
Gigiena i Sanitariia 2003(3): 6-9
2003
ISSN/ISBN: 0016-9900 PMID: 12852027 Document Number: 555136
All major medical and demographic indices changed for the worse in the country during the reform years. Due to the prevalence of mortality over the birth rate, the country's population has been decreasing at a growing pace topping, now, one million people annually. Therefore, the overcoming of the medical-and-demographic crisis alongside with searching for ways of how to preserve the ecological balance must now be on the top of the agenda of human ecology in Russia. An improvement of health and of demographic processes is possible only if there emerges a profound labor motivation in people, i.e. conditions will be provided, which would ensure the possibility to earn by honest labor. The promotion of small business, democratization of private property and changes of the governmental policy in respect to remuneration of labor are needed for this. The biological mechanisms of an extremely increased mortality level among the able-bodied population comprise, obviously, three key pathological processes, i.e. impaired functioning of the central nervous system (break-down of the dynamic stereotype, I.P. Pavlov), an over-tension in the neuro-endocrine regulation (an excessive stress, H. Selye), activation of formation of free radicals (triggering of phenoptosis, V.P. Skulachyov).