Socio-economic efficiency of cooperation between the medical research center and the metallurgical enterprise to preserve the health of workers
Authors: Gazimova Venera G. , Bukhtiyarov Igor V. , Gurvich Vladimir B. , Sutunkova Marina P. , Shastin Aleksandr S. , Aleshchenkova Natalya N. , Safrygin Aleksandr V. , Sozonova Tatyana V. , Mazhaeva Tatyana V. , Yarushin Sergey V. 
Published: December 2024

Introduction. The difficult demographic situation in the country necessitates the need to improve approaches to maintaining the health of the working population and prolonging working longevity.
One of the effective forms of solving these problems is the cooperation of medical scientific organizations and business entities in organizing a complex of systemic therapeutic and preventive measures for managing employee health risk, ensuring vertical continuity and interaction between primary and specialized units, adapted to the capabilities of a medical scientific institution and enterprise.
The study aims to evaluate the socio-economic effectiveness of cooperation between a medical research center and a socially responsible business on the example of a large metallurgical enterprise in the Sverdlovsk region.
Materials and methods. Specialists analyzed the results of a set of therapeutic and preventive measures implemented in Uralelectromed JSC together with the Yekaterinburg Medical Research Center for Prophylaxis and Health Protection in Industrial Workers (YMRC) for the period 2014–2023. The authors conducted a retrospective analysis of the occupational morbidity of employees at the enterprise for the period from 2004 to 2023 and morbidity with temporary disability (MTD) for certain nosological forms in the period from 2019 to 2023. The scientists assessed the economic efficiency of the therapeutic and preventive measures carried out at the enterprise, using the methodological recommendations adopted in the Rospotrebnadzor system.
Results. The implementation of a set of therapeutic and preventive measures for employees of Uralelectromed JSC together with YMRC allowed to reduce the proportion of people with medical contraindications to work from 8.9% in 2014 to 0.8% in 2023, the number of cases and days of morbidity with temporary disability due to hypertension by 1.9 and 2.1 times, respectively, to ensure sustainable the tendency to decrease the level of newly identified occupational morbidity, to improve the indicators characterizing the fatigue and efficiency of workers (p=0.001). The prevented economic losses as a result of the introduction of systemic therapeutic and preventive measures to manage risks to the health of employees of Uralelectromed JSC amounted to more than 25,898.0 thousand rubles per year.
Limitations. The study of morbidity with temporary disability is limited to the block of diagnoses of ICD-10 (I10–I15) "Diseases characterized by high blood pressure".
Conclusion. The introduction of a complex of systemic therapeutic and preventive measures for managing employee health risk at a metallurgical enterprise determines a significant socio-economic effect from the joint activities of a medical scientific organization and a socially responsible business, which allows us to propose this set of measures for replication at the corporate and regional levels.
Ethics. The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee of the Yekaterinburg Medical Research Center for Prophylaxis and Health Protection in Industrial Workers (conclusion No. 6 dated 12/11/2023).