Biomarkers used for the assessment of health hazards in populations living in the vicinity of communal and industrial waste dump sites.

The measure of individual hazard from exposure to environmental toxicants are the biomarkers which are indices of abnormalities within different biological systems that may be induced by hazardous agents of various chemical or biological nature. The biomarkers make it possible to "monitor" the processes within the organism from the moment of toxic agent penetration to the development of clinical symptoms. Biomarkers offer the possibility of early detection of phenomena which tend to be arranged in the sequence of pathogenic changes, usually not detectable by the conventional methods. Depending on the type of processes which accompany the effect of a specified harmful environmental agent on the human organism it may be determined with the aid of the biomarkers, which are then classified as exposure, health effect, and individual susceptibility. By integrating such concepts as exposure, health effect, and individual susceptibility, enhanced analysis of the problem of health risk in people exposed to environmental toxic agents has become possible.