An issue, which is currently described as under investigation is the role of social risk factors in the development of northern children. The adverse social factors are seen as able to cause rather a
strong targeted effect and weaken the individual’s functional reserve at a very sensitive stage of his development.
Social conditions
The survey of the social and household settings and the makeup of the families of primary school children in Arkhangelsk has enabled us to classify them, for reasons of statistical comparison, into two groups – children growing in a favourable setting (low social risk level) – 660 (76.8%), and children growing in an unfavourable setting (high social risk level) – 200 (23.2%).
As known, health level of descendants is predetermined by the health level of their parents. In our survey, 64.2% of mothers and 52% of fathers suffered from functional and chronic diseases. A hereditary load from one of several diseases was found in 8.4% of cases.
As far as social status goes, 26.4% of primary school children live in single-parent families. Single-single-parent families are mainly the result of a divorce or death of a spouse, or birth of an illegitimate child. They account for 11.8% of families at social risk.
Physical development and success in learning activity
The level of children’s physical development is a core criterion and indicator of health and social well-being of a society. By surveying the patterns in children’s physical development it is possible to establish correlations between morphofunctional properties and the
biological age of children, as well as to provide descriptions of ontogenetic progress and development. The analysis of physical development levels in children exposed to high and low social risk has produced some doubtful findings. Deficit of body mass and height was evident in 3.4% of children growing in favourable settings and in 9.4% of children exposed to a higher social risk. Each group had approximately an equal number of children outperforming their peers, developmentally, at least on one parameter.
The incidence and prevalence of functional disorders and chronic diseases in children and adolescence are being followed by all the Russian regions, with focus on the effect of climate, geography and environment, as well as the crash course mode of education. Of interest is the structural comparison we have carried out of the functional disorders and chronic diseases in children living in different social settings. Generally, no major differences in the structure of functional disorders and chronic diseases in children living in different social settings have been found. However, children exposed to an unfavourable social setting are more likely to display neurotic disorders or hyperactivity combined with school disadaptation, which can be seen as a form of adaptation to the unfavourable micro-setting.
The decline in health levels in children and adolescents often entails poorer academic achievements. Essential to good academic progress are active attention and mental capacity. Their deficit may lead to steadfast academic problems. Individual evaluation of the survey outcome has shown an extreme scatter in the data concerning the number
of characters/letters viewed by children.
The children who enjoy a favourable social setting coped easier with information processing and tended to maintain high level of performance during longer periods of time, also demonstrating higher resistance to interference in what they were doing. The stability of attention was markedly higher in children exposed to low social risk than in children living in less favourable settings. This may be indicative of a higher level of voluntary attention. The analysis of information processing rate has not shown any marked differences between the groups surveyed. The low information processing rate displayed by primary school children evidences functional immaturity of the brain structures responsible for perceptual experience.
Specialities of vegetative regulation From a medical-biological point of view, the level of a child’s health is defined by the capacity of his functional reserve. The higher the functional reserve, the lower the ‘price’ the child pays for adaptation.
Relying on the understanding of cardiovascular system as an indicator of the adaptive potential and activity within the entire body, we did the structural and spectral analysis of a cardiac rhythm variability in children exposed to low and high social risk levels. Surveyed at rest and under load, the cardiac rhythm variability serves an important integrative indicator of the adaptation process status.
The analysis of time and rate parameters of cardiac rhythm variability in boys exposed to higher social risk has
shown prevalent activity of sympathetic section of their vegetative nervous system. Given a high stress index, the assumption can be made that these boys’
regulatory mechanisms are undergoing a greater stress as compared to those in peers who enjoy more favourable settings.
At the same time, the extremely low rate is indicative of a lower activity within the cerebral undersegmental structures in the boys exposed to higher social risk, which also decreases the activity within the central regulation contour as compared to that within the autonomous.
In terms of time and rate parameters, the girls exposed to higher social risk levels were found to manifest more marked dominance of the parasympathetic section in their vegetative nervous system. The stress index for girls living in an unfavourable social setting appeared lower than for girls who enjoy more favourable settings. Yet, this finding is uncertain. As with boys exposed to higher social risk levels, girls, too, were found to display low activity within the central regulation contour as compared to that within the autonomous.
The evaluation of the orthostatic responsiveness in terms of cardiac rhythm variability in children belonging to different social groups has shown that the children exposed to lower social risk levels tend to manifest higher stress-index orthostatic response performance, as compared to peers living in less favourable settings. This, in turn, is indicative of them having more markedly intense regulation mechanisms and lower adaptation potential. It should be noted that, generally, the level of orthostatic responsiveness in terms of time and rate parameters of cardiac rhythm variability in children belonging
to less favourable settings appeared lower, which evidences higher adaptation potential of the body. It is also important to note that the markedly decreased vegetative response within the extremely-low-frequency cardiac rhythm fluctuation in children exposed to higher social risk, which, in turn, provides a true picture of the status of the cerebral suprasegmental structures.
The constant potentials distribution pattern in the brains of children exposed to higher social risk evidences that the larger hemisphere cortex produces an intense regulatory effect on the subcortical structures, with the total energy consumption in these children’s brains exceeding the age-specific norm by the average of 25%.
Children’s psychomotor development The comparative study of psychomotor development in primary school children exposed to different levels of social risk has revealed certain specialities. Major differences were identified as a result of the analysis of static (balance keeping) and dynamic coordination of movements.
Auditory-motor coordination tests revealed that 30% of boys and 26% of girls exposed to higher social risk levels found it difficult to reproduce the sequence of the shocks played. Consequently, the psychomotor patterns in the children exposed to higher social risk levels can be related, primarily, to coordination capacity disorders.
Thus, the obtained results are indicative of the social heterogeneity among secondary school children. An assumption can be made that social risk factors are able to largely modify the degree to which northern children are
able to adapt themselves to the climate and the environment, as they deteriorate the children’s health.
Children’s dispensarization
The scheduled health survey of the Arkhangelsk Region children reveals that more than 60% of them suffer deviations from the normal health levels. The outcomes of the health survey are discouraging enough to have a closer look at the reasons of an extremely high incidence and proneness of school children to faults in posture, scoliosis, myopia, neurotic disorders and cold-related diseases.
On the increase is also the number of children with alimentary dependent diseases, which often relates to inadequate diet and nutrition. 18% of northern school children are registered as suffering from a delay in their physical development.
Low physical fitness is found in 11% of the region’s school children.
More sensitive indicators able to describe the influence of the environment, school instruction and education on a child’s health level are produced by multifaceted evaluations of health. What stands out is the fact that children in health group I tend to suffer from a deficit of a specific body mass and an increase in the chronic diseases incidence. The trends identified provide the information on how primary school children adapt themselves to changes in their life setting – a process that is essential to the development of functional systems when exposed to a set of adverse factors.
In forming and maintaining the health levels in children and adolescents, special responsibility lies with educational institutions. The health
services system currently established in the educational institutions is unable to improve health level or decrease disease incidence. It should be noted here that the majority of schools in the region’s capital no longer offer the position of a school doctor. Instead, they employ nurses, paramedics and part time doctors who do not major in pediatrics.