The paper analyzes the present health status of the population, including mortality of able-bodied individuals, examines the changes in age-specific mortality rates. This also gives the results of studies into the causes of increased deaths from various unfavourable exposures to occupational, environmental, socioeconomic and other factors. The paper also presents epidemiological cohort surveys of workers exposed to lead and outlines the objectives and tasks of the section "Environmental Epidemiology" of the Environmental Control Project.