The paper concentrates on reviewing results of studies that address the influence exerted by climate change in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions on local population health, ecological situation and ongoing sanitary-epidemiological processes. The systemic review includes research articles available in PubMed (maintained by The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health), Scopus (the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature), WoS (the abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature) and BVS (Virtual Health Library) that were published over the period from 1960 to 2021. The review covers pressing environmental, sanitary-hygienic and social issues and identifies priority risk factors for public health and wildlife. Global pollution and communicable diseases are shown to pose threats for indigenous people living in the Arctic. These threats are likely to be greater than those faced by populations living elsewhere in the world. We suggest certain solutions to the existing issues. Our conclusion is that climate is changing faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet. Global pollution and communicable diseases pose threats for public health, including the health of indigenous people living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. It is necessary to intensify cooperation among different states to reduce external influences on the Arctic environment and to maintain public health.

The purpose of this article is to examine risk perception among some specific stakeholders, including international intergovernmental bodies, private western-based corporates, and among European public opinion surveys. We also address concerns of the Russian Federation and the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Perception of risks is key to policy decision-making and probably more important than risk assessment. We offer a medico-scientific perspective based on factual evidence drawn mostly from official websites and publications. Our first goal is to understand if sufficient attention is given to human health, disease prevention and control relative to economic and financial considerations. Our second goal is to promote a translational and interprofessional approach to global risk prioritization by cooperation between the medicoscientific community and the financial-economic world. To this end, we examine the benefits for the practice of economic risk assessment of engaging biomedical expertise focused on global environmental health. Maintenance, expansion and sustainability of the human enterprise require health and wellness.

The paper concentrates on reviewing results of studies that address the influence exerted by climate change in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions on local population health, ecological situation and ongoing sanitary-epidemiological processes. The systemic review includes research articles available in PubMed (maintained by The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health), Scopus (the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature), WoS (the abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature) and BVS (Virtual Health Library) that were published over the period from 1960 to 2021. The review covers pressing environmental, sanitary-hygienic and social issues and identifies priority risk factors for public health and wildlife. Global pollution and communicable diseases are shown to pose threats for indigenous people living in the Arctic. These threats are likely to be greater than those faced by populations living elsewhere in the world. We suggest certain solutions to the existing issues. Our conclusion is that climate is changing faster in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet. Global pollution and communicable diseases pose threats for public health, including the health of indigenous people living in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. It is necessary to intensify cooperation among different states to reduce external influences on the Arctic environment and to maintain public health.

This research is vital due to the considerable global medical and demographic losses during the COVID-19 pandemic and the latest research works providing evidence of a correlation between air pollution and spread of the disease, its sever- ity, clinical course and outcomes. Our research goal was to quantitatively estimate the influence of ambient air pollution on SARS-CoV-2 spread among populations in six cities in the Russian Federation. These cities were among priority ones as per air pollution and were in- cluded in the “Clean air” Federal project (Bratsk, Krasnoyarsk, Norilsk, Omsk, Cherepovets, and Lipetsk). Our hypothesis was that dynamic features of the infection spread would be different from an expected model of its epi- demiologic process under exposure to environmental pollution. Regression and correlation analysis was performed for rela- tionships between a daily deviation in actual incidence from a basic epidemiologic scenario and the average daily concen- trations of chemicals in ambient air. The initial data were results obtained from instrument measurements of ambient air quality in the examined cities (approximately 10.8 thousand measurements covering 29 chemicals) and the daily incidence of COVID-19 from April 18, 2020 to July 31, 2021 (77,337 cases). An authentic correlation between COVID-19 incidence and chemical concentrations in ambient air was detected in all six examined cities. The contribution of air pollution to COVID-19 prevalence amounted to 5.0 ± 2.6 % in five cities (Kras- noyarsk, Norilsk, Omsk, Cherepovets, and Lipetsk) over the examined period. In Bratsk, this value was about 33% and it requires additional research for either confirmation or correction. Growth in COVID-19 incidence in the examined territo- ries is associated with particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) and some other chemicals that can irritate the airway directly or indirectly (sulfuric acid vapors, hydrogen chloride, formaldehyde, hydrogen sulphide, etc.). Target levels were substantiated for several priority chemicals; should these levels be achieved, one would predict a decrease in COVID-19 prevalence by more than 1-3% in the examined cities. We propose that population morbidity and mortality caused by COVID-19 require further studies, including those combined with medical and biological examination regarding efficiency of vaccination and post-vaccination immunity per- sistence on territories with elevated environmental pollution.