Article Text
Abstract
Introduction The study of the biological age of miners living and working in the central Kazakhstan allows us to talk about such a phenomenon as premature aging. The main group of men with a moderate acceleration in the rate of aging was made up of workers in occupations with the most harmful working conditions, i.e., tunnellers and drillers with more than 10–15 years of work experience.
Objectives The purpose of our research was to study the health status of workers in the mining industry of central Kazakhstan, based on the results of determining the biological age.
Methods To determine the biological age, the method of V.P. Voitenko, in which the indicator of biological age is compared with the value of the proper biological age, calculated by the formula using the calendar age of the subject. The number of respondents was 300 workers of mines of the following professions: 80 tunnellers, 50 drillers, 50 electrical fitters, 100 miners and 20 foremen.
Results The average biological age of workers, equal to 46.6 years, exceeded the proper biological age by 6 years (with an average work experience of 14.2 years) and was more than 10 years higher than the calendar age. This means that the aging of miners was more pronounced in comparison with the population standard of aging. It should be noted that the differences between the values of the calendar age and the proper biological age in miners increased with an increase in the calendar growth, which indicates that the rate of aging in miners was most pronounced in middle and older age.
Conclusion The average biological age of miners, equal to 45.6 years, exceeded the proper biological age by 5 years (with an average work experience of 14.5 years) and was 9 years higher than their calendar age.