Prevalence of male infertility in federal cities

Abstract

Introduction. Although men’s reproductive health is critically important for demographic stability and social well-being of the state, the problem of male infertility remains underestimated. The purpose of the study was to assess the prevalence of male infertility in the federal cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Materials and methods. Based on statistical data, a comparative analysis of the prevalence of male infertility in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg over a ten-year period (2014–2024) was carried out. Dynamic series methods and Student’s t-test were used to assess the significance of the differences (p<0.05). The generated pool of statistical information was processed in the MS Office-2019 and StatSoft-Statistica 10.0 programs. Results. In the structure of male infertility incidence in the Russian Federation, the two largest cities Moscow and St. Petersburg accounted for an average of 5.9±0.56% of cases during the study period, their dynamics was –0.3 percentage points (p>0.05). The incidence of male infertility in cities of federal significance differs markedly from the national values. In Moscow, the average prevalence was 14.3±1.2 cases per 100,000 adult male population, which is 5.1 times lower than the national average. In St. Petersburg, the average rate was 78.6±10.1 cases per 100,000 adult males, which is 7.4% higher than in the whole country and 5.5 times higher than the Moscow level. At the same time, there is a downward trend in these parameters in the capital, while in St. Petersburg, despite their initially higher level, there is an increase. Nevertheless, the changes in 2014–2024 are not statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusion. With the high availability of medical care in megacities, the rates of male infertility remain disproportionately low (especially in Moscow), which indicates both the low number of men applying to medical organizations in the city and the imperfection of statistical accounting of cases of this disease. It should be noted that official statistics data include only information obtained from medical organizations of the state and municipal health systems (private clinics are not taken into account). As a result, these restrictions and socio-cultural barriers do not allow us to reliably assess the scale of the existing problem, which indicates the need for further study in order to develop effective measures to improve men’s reproductive health.