About us

The Department of Hygiene and Ecology of Kharkiv National Medical University (KhNMU) is a descendant of the preventive medicine departments established throughout the university’s existence. Before the creation of an independent department of hygiene, the discipline was taught in other departments as part of courses in medical police, hygiene, and dietetics.

The Department of Hygiene was established as a separate entity in 1873. A.I. Yakobiy (1827–1907) was the founder and first head of the department, he led the department until 1885. Thanks to his efforts, the hygiene course at the university developed as an independent subject of teaching, science, and medical practice.

The department provides training for students under educational-professional programs:

The first (bachelor’s) level in the specialties:

• 227 “Physical Therapy”
• 231 “Social Work in Public Health”
• 224 “Medical Diagnostics and Treatment Technologies”
• 223 “Nursing”
• 053 “Psychology”

Currently, the department’s priority areas of scientific activity include the scientific substantiation of methodological approaches to determining pre-pathological conditions for the development of professional burnout in workers of socially significant professions, considering the risk of burnout, the nature of work, social-demographic and individual-typological characteristics, mental health status, personality types, and stress resistance.

This direction has been implemented since 2011 within the framework of international cooperation with occupational medicine specialists from Germany, leading to a cooperation agreement between the Department of Occupational Medicine at the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg (Germany) and the Departments of Hygiene and Ecology No. 2 and Internal and Occupational Diseases of Kharkiv National Medical University. Currently, work is being carried out to test the methodology for early detection of pre-pathological conditions, taking into account the psychophysiological status of workers.

Since January 2021, department staff have been conducting a research project titled “Substantiation of Criteria for Pre-Pathological Conditions of Professional Burnout in Healthcare Workers,” led by I.V. Zavhorodnii, with a completion date of 01.01.2021–31.12.2023, funded by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine under the state budget, registration number is 0121U110914.

The research project includes an in-depth study of the psychophysiological status of healthcare workers (sensorimotor reaction, attention and cognitive activity features, variability of sensorimotor reactivity under complex mental workloads involving the processing of visual and auditory information, characteristics of memory, capacity for work, and monotony resistance) with the establishment of correlations between these characteristics and individual-typological personality traits depending on the degree of work process intensity, followed by the substantiation of criteria for pre-pathological conditions for the development of professional burnout in healthcare workers.

In cooperation with Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, research is being conducted based on artificial intelligence, to develop mathematical approaches for verifying early informative criteria for diagnosing the development of professional burnout in healthcare workers to form a pre-pathological condition group. Joint research is also being conducted on the combined effects of environmental factors and the formation of adaptive biological effects and their mechanisms, based on the fuzzy clustering method (fuzzy-c-means), which involves determining criterion-significant indicators and establishing the contribution of each factor to the overall biological effect.

Since 2019, under an agreement with the State Institution “Grigoriev Institute of Medical Radiology and Oncology” of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, experimental research has been actively conducted to determine the characteristics of radioprotectors’ effects (S-heteryl-modified thiols) under acute irradiation combined with cold stress.

Since 2022, research has also been conducted at the Department of Education of the Kharkiv City Council, aimed at developing hygienically substantiated measures to prevent professional burnout among preschool education workers based on a hygienic assessment of working conditions in preschool institutions and psychophysiological research results. In 2023, an initiative research project “Development of Professional Burnout Prevention Measures for Preschool Education Workers” was launched.

In 2023, a new direction in research activities was initiated, involving an in-depth study of the impact of digital simulation technologies on the health of higher medical education students, based on the study of hygienic foundations for organizing educational sessions using digital simulators, changes in the psychophysiological state of students during the mastering of practical skills on various types of simulators, followed by the substantiation of criteria for revealing pre-pathological and pathological conditions.

Experimental research on scientific subjects is carried out in the scientific laboratory of the Department of Hygiene and Ecology, which is equipped with modern laboratory equipment for conducting sanitary-hygienic, toxicological, biochemical, hematological, and psychophysiological research.

The scientific achievements of the department are actively presented at international scientific events, such as the Congress of the German Society for Occupational and Environmental Medicine (DGAUM) in Göttingen in 2012; Bregenz in 2013; Dresden in 2014; Munich in 2015, 2018, and 2022; Frankfurt in 2019; Jena in 2021 and 2023; Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Third International Conference on Data Stream Mining & Processing (DSMP); MU-VARNA international partnerships forum digitalization in education and health, Varna in 2021; Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2021; Information Technology and Implementation (IT&I-2021) 2022. The scientific achievements are also presented at national scientific-practical conferences: “Current Issues of Occupational Health and Professional Pathology” (Kyiv), “Medicine of the Third Millennium” (Kharkiv), “Current Issues of Public Health and Environmental Safety in Ukraine” (Marzeev Readings,Kyiv), “Cold in Biology and Medicine” (Kharkiv), “Current Problems of Preventive Medicine” (Lviv), “International Medical Congress of Students and Young Scientists” (Ternopil), and others.

The scientific achievements of the department are published in journals indexed in scientometric databases Scopus and Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scimago Journal Ranking, as well as in specialized national scientific-practical publications, and are presented at international scientific forums.

The results of the department’s research are formalized as intellectual property objects (patents for inventions, utility model patents, copyright certificates, etc.). Additionally, the results of the research are implemented in the practical activities of the Kharkiv Regional Laboratory Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Kharkiv Regional Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine, Department of Health of Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Research Institute of Biology of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, City Clinical Emergency Hospital named after Prof. O.I. Meshchaninov of the Kharkiv City Council, clinics of the State Institution “Grigoriev Institute of Medical Radiology and Oncology” of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, as well as in the educational-methodological activities of the profile departments of Vinnytsia National Medical University named after M.I. Pirogov, National Medical University named after O.O. Bogomolets.

The department organizes an annual scientific-educational conference “Clinical Environmental Medicine. The Production Environment as a Health-Forming Factor” involving specialists on labor and population employment issues.

The Department of Hygiene and Ecology actively cooperates with European universities within mobility projects and scientific agreements, particularly with Germany, Poland, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, and Lithuania. The department’s international activities are also implemented through participation in academic cooperation and exchange programs, particularly within the framework of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) program. This allows for establishing close contacts with colleagues from Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg (Germany, Magdeburg). Additionally, department staff regularly enhance their qualifications through international internships in European countries, particularly within the Una4UA Project and Erasmus+ Staff Practical Training program.

At the Department of Hygiene and Ecology, internships for graduates of the second (master’s) level of higher education in the specialties 221 “Dentistry,” 222 “Medicine,” 228 “Pediatrics” in the field of knowledge 22 “Healthcare” are conducted in accordance with the Order of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine dated 22.06.2021 No. 1254 “On Approval of the Regulations on Internship.” According to this order, the specialty “General Hygiene” has been excluded from the list of specialties for internship training.

At the department, at the postgraduate stage, interns in the field of knowledge 222 “Medicine” are taught the discipline “Radiation Medicine” according to the schedule of related cycles for medical interns. Interns master the patterns of forming radiation exposure of the population, its assessment, the basics of the biological effects of ionizing radiation sources, and radiation protection, methods and means of measuring radiation levels and radionuclide concentrations in air, water, foods, radioactive contamination of surfaces in the environment. Special attention is paid to the hygienic assessment of radiation protection of medical personnel and radiation safety of patients when using radionuclides and other sources of ionizing radiation in healthcare institutions. The department is provided with legislative documents on the section “Radiation Medicine,” informational-methodological materials, and updated methodological guidelines for practical lessons. Classes with interns are conducted by D.P. Pertsev, PhD, Associate Professor of the Department.

The department annually conducts a cycle of thematic improvement “Selected Issues of Nutrition for Healthy and Sick Individuals in Medical Practice” designed for practitioners. The main goal of the course is to provide up-to-date knowledge about the principles of healthy nutrition, the specifics of diet therapy for various diseases, disease prevention through dietary recommendations, and the principles of developing individual nutrition plans for patients with chronic diseases. The cycle is in high demand among medical professionals as it contributes to the improvement of doctors’ professional qualifications and deepening their knowledge in the field of nutrition, which is an important aspect of maintaining and improving patients’ health.