Common immunological pathways of anti-infection immunity and allergic reactivity modification in children associated with peculiarities of the modern educational process and environment quality

This study is relevant due to humoral and cellular pathways of the immune response having much in common as well as its high sensitivity to factors of the modern educational process in school when building up anti-infection and anti-allergy protection. Our research objects were secondary schools with profound studies of some subjects (Type 1 schools) and ordinary secondary schools (Type 2 schools); overall, we examined 842 schoolchildren from Type 1 schools and 540 schoolchildren from Type 2 schools.

The aim of this study was to establish conditions and common pathogenetic sections of immunological pathways of anti-infection immunity and allergic reactivity modification associated with environmental exposures and exposure to factors of the modern educational process.
We analyzed how educational activities were organized in the analyzed schools; what food products were consumed by the participating schoolchildren daily and their chemical structure; basic aspects of schoolchildren’s lifestyles; quality of indoor air in classrooms; quality of ambient air in areas where the analyzed schools were located; prevalence of allergic diseases (ADs) and anti-infection immunity disorders; results of immunological tests and chemical blood tests; intensity of humoral anti-infection and post-vaccination immunity. The study involved odds ratio calculation, linear regression analysis, and neural network modeling.

As a result, we established that high educational loads, improper duration of breaks and periods of work with electronic teaching aids (ETAs), insufficient sleeping time, too low physical activity and too high digital activity among schoolchildren, manganese, nickel, chromium and formaldehyde in air inside classrooms in levels up to 1.8–8.5 higher than RfCchr, and unhealthy diets created 1.3 times higher risks of ADs, 2.3 times higher risks of insufficient production of IgG to herpesviruses, 3.1–5.4 times higher risks of an increasing proportion of people seronegative to measles and diphtheria antigens (OR = 1.33–5.40). Activation of cellular-mediated reaction of adaptive immunity response (an increase in levels of CD3+-, CD3+CD25+-, CD3+CD8+- lymphocytes) and declining activity of the non-specific resistance system (a decline in absolute phagocytosis, phagocytic number, and levels of CD16+56+- lymphocytes) were common pathogenetic sections of immunological pathways of anti-infection immunity and allergic reactivity modification upon exposure to a set of priority factors. Isolated contributions made by various factors to likelihood of risk-associated ADs amounted to 35.7–74.0 % for peculiarities of the modern educational process; chemical factors, 7.6–33.1 %; lifestyle, 7.6–31.2 %. Contributions to humoral post-infection and post-vaccination immunity disorders amounted to 14.6–44.0 % for diet-related factors; educational process, 13.5–30.8 %; lifestyle, 11.4–29.4 %; chemical factors, 6.5–19.9 %.