Head of laboratory

Lyudmila PROKOPENKO

MD, Professor

 

+7 (495) 3654603
+7 (495) 3660988
prokopenko@irioh.ru

Scientific activities:
  • The development of theoretical and methodological basis of hygienic rationing of physical factors in the industrial environment, taking into account the specific nature of labor activity and the complex of acting factors (combined effect, labor severity and intensity), to justify measures to prevent their adverse effect on the working organism.
  • The coordination of scientific research on the problem of occupational health under the effect of physical factors of industrial environment, participation in the work on harmonization of domestic normative documents with international standards, development and expertise of technical regulations.
  • Scientific substantiation of safe expositional doses of physical factors of industrial and non-industrial environment, the development of criteria for risk assessment of the health, the elaboration of methodology and criteria for the regulation of physical factors complex effect to the worker’s health (considering the peculiarities of individual reactions).
  • Scientific substantiation of hygienic requirements to the means and methods of monitoring the environment (habitat), industrial environment and workers’ health, based on the study of the impact of physical factors of technogenic and natural origin, the elaboration of differentiated prevention complexes; scientific substantiation of hygienic requirements to measures and means for prevention of physical factors’ adverse effect.
Including:
  • The study of regularities and mechanisms of the impact of physical factors of vibroacoustic nature (noise, vibration, ultrasound and infrasound) of the environment and industrial environment on the health condition and the development of preventive measures.
  • The substantiation of indicators and criteria for workers’ health assessment in production and life activity under the influence of vibroacoustic factors.
  • The implementation of innovative medical and organizational technologies to reduce the adverse impact of vibroacoustic factors of working conditions on workers’ health.
  • The improvement of sanitary standards and metrology of vibroacoustic factors in order to ensure the uniformity of their measurements and hygienic assessment under human exposure in the environment and industrial environment, the development of appropriate sections to the technical regulations, quality standards for the industrial environment, the industrial-ecological management system.
  • The monitoring of the trends in changes in national approaches to the regulation and control of vibroacoustic factors in the globalizing world economy.
  • The development of medical and technical requirements for measuring equipment and measurement methods, and hygienic assessment of vibroacoustic factors, taking into account new controlled parameters and harmonized frequency corrections considering the factor’s impact on the health and comfort of workers.
  • Complex hygienic assessment of modern sources of vibroacoustic factors.
  • The calculation of one-number indicators of vibroacoustic factors’ assessment in accordance with the requirements of domestic and international regulatory documents (equivalent, equivalent adjusted levels and values, total vector values and exposure of controlled parameters based on spectral characteristics and direct measurements).
  • The individual dose assessment of noise and vibration loads on workers, taking into consideration the performance of labor operations on permanent and non-permanent jobs at work of different tension degrees.
  • The detection of dose-effective dependencies of vibroacoustic factors’ impact on the health indicators of workers serving modern equipment.
  • The development of recommendations on the use of the methodology of health risk assessment caused by vibroacoustic factors with their isolated and combined effects with other industrial factors to ensure an effective prevention of occupational diseases, as well as risk assessment of works’ execution in specific working conditions.
  • Monitoring the working and health conditions of people engaged in vibro-dangerous business, for the purpose to control when working with vibro-dangerous tools, and preventing the development of occupational diseases in specific enterprises and organizations.
  • Physiological and hygienic assessment of the combined effect of industrial factors (including vibration, cooling, noise) in vibro-dangerous business in order to develop workers’ health preserving programs and reduce the occupational morbidity.
  • The substantiation of measures for comprehensive prevention of occupational and work-related diseases on the basis of adequate innovative methods, the development of criteria for risk reduction and effectiveness assessing.
  • The development of recommendations for assessing the risk of developing health disorders from the impact of industrial factors for workers of specific noise-vibro-dangerous business and individual factors, predisposing to the development of diseases in order to develop health standards (regulations) for enterprises, attestation of workplaces and classification of working conditions, as well as principles and methods of socio-hygienic monitoring based on data base of occupational morbidity connected with the work conditions.
  • The substantiation of the criteria of selection for specific occupations on the basis of hygienic characteristics of working conditions and individual risk factors when exposed to vibroacoustic factors.
  • Making predictions of the effectiveness of the preventive measures working in vibro-dangerous business taking into account the effect of industrial and individual risk factors.
  • The development of normative and methodological documents, including the sanitary norms and rules, guidelines and recommendations, information letters, hygienic regulations for safe working, medical and technical requirements for the vibration-measuring equipment for adequate control of factors, risk management and prevention of occupational and work-related diseases.
  • Making recommendations on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the assessment of their efficiency in order to improve safety at the workplace, preserve the workers’ health, increase labor productivity and reduce the costs for rehabilitation measures (taking into account the UN strategy for safety at the workplace).
  • The expertise of draft normative and technical documentation for facilities that are sources of noise for the purpose of establishing sanitary protection zones; hygienic assessment of products and equipment that are sources of vibroacoustic factors in order to develop recommendations for safe use.
  • Physiological and hygienic justification for the requirements for optimal and permissible microclimate parameters at workplaces, taking into account the factors that determine the heat exchange between a person and the environment (energy
    expenditure, special clothes) and the thermoregulatory reactions depending on sex, type of activity, season of the year, etc.
  • The development of methods for the integral assessment of the functional state of a person and microclimate when the complex factors affecting the human thermal state.
  • The research on the functional and thermal state of a person in a heating and cooling environment. The development of criteria for assessing the thermal load on the body. Forecasting the thermal and functional state of a person depending on the factors that determine the thermal and cold load on the workers.
  • The development of methods for assessing the risk of cooling or overheating of a person, taking into consideration a set of factors that determine the thermal load on the body (microclimate parameters, thermophysical properties of special clothes, energy expenditure, duration of staying in an unfavorable environment).
  • The development of physiological and hygienic requirements for the thermal insulation of a set of special clothes (overalls) and some of its subjects (headgear, mittens, shoes), designed to protect against low temperatures. The study of the thermoregulatory reactions in the area of head, hands and feet. The development of the methods for predicting the proper thermal insulation of a set of clothes and its individual items in specific conditions of their use. The study of the effect of air permeability of the outer layer, vapor permeability and moisture of materials during physical activity of a person, on the heat insulation of a set of clothes and its different parts.
  • The research work on the influence of protective clothes on the thermal state of a person working in the heating climate, considering thermophysical parameters of materials.
  • The adjustment of the requirements for the microclimate parameters at the workplaces, depending on the degree of the influence of special clothes to the human thermal state.
  • The development of physiological and hygienic requirements for the means of thermal state normalization when working in the heating or cooling climate.
  • The development of a working regime in the heating or cooling environment, taking into consideration the use of special clothes, the microclimate parameters, physical activity.
  • The investigation of individual reactions to the effect of cold and heat in order to correct the method of predicting the human thermal state.
  • The development of the measures to prevent the cooling or overheating of a person working in the adverse environment.