In world practice, the main indicator of a full-fledged life of every person, even society, is his
health, and therefore the assessment of the quality of human life and the state of his health comes
out in the first place. Modern global environmental problems, that is, the protection and
improvement of the human nutrient environment and the biosphere, require a comprehensive study
of a new direction of science – the influence of the geographical environment on public health.
In this regard, a new field of medical geography has emerged from the interweaving of
geographical and medical sciences in the last decade. The structural content of medical geography
consists of nosogeography, medical landscape studies, and medical regional studies.
Nosogeography in the scientific language of medical geography comes from the Greek word nosos -
types of diseases and geography. He studies the geographical distribution of certain types of human
diseases, that is, natural and socio-economic factors and the state of the geographical environment
that have a positive and negative impact on the health of the population, as well as patterns of the
spread of human diseases. From a medical point of view, it is closer to the pathology, epidemiology
and hygiene of the disease, and from a geographical point of view it is closer to biogeography and
landscape geochemistry. Therefore, medical geography is considered from the point of view of the
ratio of the "environment-health" system.
Medical geography is an integrated field of science that combines geographical, biological,
astronomical, chemical, historical, socio-economic, environmental and other fields of science. The
relationship between the level of health and the geographical environment in the anthropological
system is determined by the criteria of the ratio of factors of the geographical environment to a
person. The primary geographical environment does not have natural "positive" or "negative"
properties, it is formed as a result of anthropogenic activity.
In medical geography, the consideration of the influence of climatic factors on human health, i.e.
meteorological factors – air temperature, wind, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and their features in
a sharply continental climate is an assessment of medical geography from a climatic point of view.
The issues of acclimatization of human health and the peculiarities of hot and cold climates are
considered here, the importance of biofertilizer for human life is determined. Consequently, the
study of the influence of the geographical environment on the health of the population and the
patterns of geographical spread of diseases allows students to develop skills in medical and
geographical forecasting.