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Shitov, A.V., 2010. Health of people
living in a seismically active region. In: Florinsky, I.V. (Ed.), Man and the Geosphere. Nova Science Publishers, New
York, pp. 185–213. Hundreds of millions of people live in
seismically active regions around the globe. They are influenced by active tectonic
factors on not only days of strong earthquakes, but every day as well. In
this chapter, the author analyzes the influence of the geoenvironment on the health
of people, living in a seismically active region, the Altai Republic, at long-, medium-, and
short-term temporal scales. Correlation
analyses of prevalence rates of various nosologies and a set of geological indices
demonstrated that there is a long-term influence of terrestrial γ radiation,
intrusions, magnetic anomalies, and active faults on the morbidity of some diseases in the adult
population. Medium- and short-term medical reactions of the local population
on the 2003 Chuya earthquake are studied in the context of its preparation,
meteorological and hydrogeological consequences. At a medium-term scale,
analysis of time series of incidence rates of various nosologies in the adult, teenager, and
child populations demonstrated that incidence dynamics of the total adult morbidity and
some nosologies is marked by a gradual rise in 2000–2001, a sharp spike in
2002–2003, and a gradual decay in 2004–2005. This may testify that the earthquake preparation
has begun to influence the health of local people about 2–3 years ahead of
the main shock. At a short-term scale, a superimposed epoch analysis of time
series of emergency calls demonstrated that there was an increase in calls
before the earthquake and during aftershocks. The author supposes that different
seismically derived agents influence human health at different temporal
scales. At a medium-term scale, changes of a dynamic stress field results in
the increase of fracturing along fault zones leading to the rise of the radon
emanation and changes in the hydrogeological situation. At a short-term scale, the earthquake
preparation causes atmospheric events triggering geomagnetic fluctuations. There were differences in both
the medium- and short-term dynamics of morbidity concerning different
nosologies. This may testify that different systems of the human organism are
marked by distinct sensitivities to an earthquake as a stress factor.
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