[Results and prospects for the study of endemic goiter in Kazakhstan]

The results of many-year-old research into endemic goiter epidemiology in Kazakhstan were summed up. Methods for the assessment of potential goiter risk were worked out. Multipurpose expedition investigations including mass screenings of the population and animals in all climatic and geographic zones of the republic, an analysis of the concentration of iodine and some other trace elements in the environment and the level of their consumption by man, resulted in compiling a variety of medicogeographic maps on endemic goiter epidemiology. Borders of goiter foci with various degree of endemia were defined; regions on the territory of Kazakhstan were singled out with relation to a degree of potential goiter risk, iodine deficiency, the concentration of cuprum, cobalt, manganese and fluorine. A zone of relative iodine deficiency where endemia was characterized by normal iodine consumption, was defined. Methods of differentiated antigoiter prevention with account of specific biogeochemical conditions of one or another focus, were worked out. Their introduction significantly raised the efficacy of antigoiter measures reducing goiter prevalence up to a sporadic level. The prospects of further advances in goiter control are associated with defining a biogeocemical situation in various endemic zones.