ХИМИЧЕСКАЯ БЕЗОПАСНОСТЬ, 2017, Том 1, № 2, с. 1143, http://www.chemsafety.ru Влияние загрязнителей окружающей среды на здоровье человека UDC 504.75 DOI: 10.25514/CHS.2017.2.10981 CHILDREN’S HEALTH CHALLENGES CAUSED BY ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE AND MAIN PROPOSED SOLUTION APPROACHES1 K. Danielyan*, A. Nazaretyan, S. Kosyan, and L. Nersisyan Association “For Sustainable Human Development” Chair on Ecology and Sustainable Development of Armenian State Pedagogical University, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia, *e-mail:
[email protected] Received August 16, 2017 The article summarizes and analyzes both official and independent current experimental data on the state of the environment in the Republic of Armenia in order to identify the most disadvantaged areas and the possible impact of degraded ecosystems on the health of the population, especially children. The obtained results show that the most risk-relevant zones are mining areas contaminated with heavy metals, which exert rather negative impact on human health, in particular, children’s health. Some recommendations for improving the situation are presented. Keywords: environment in Republic of Armenia, climate change, children health, disasters, mining, heavy metals in soil, water, food. INTRODUCTION Currently, numerous and comprehensive extensive studies resulted in the following conclusion made by the International Scientific Society in conjunction with the World Health Organization: the health of the population generally depends on the following factors: 1. Ecology (up to 20%); 2. Socio-economic factors (up to 50%); 3. Genetics (up to 20%); 4. State of healthcare services (up to 10%) [1-3]. Meanwhile, it is also obvious that these relationships are typical for “standard” situations, hence, if any of the factors is severely deteriorated, the impact/weight of this factor significantly increases.