Occupational Health Services Integrated in Primary Health Care in Iran

Introduction: A healthy workforce is vital for maintaining social and economic development on a global, national and local level. Around half of the world's people are economically active and spend at least one third of their time in their place of work while only 15% of workers have access to basic occupational health services. According to WHO report, since the early 1980s, health indicators in Iran have consistently improved, to the extent that it is comparable with those in developed countries. In this paper it was tried to briefly describe about Health care system and occupational Health Services as part of Primary Health care in Iran. Methods: To describe the health care system in the country and the status of occupational health services to the workers and employers, its integration into Primary Health Care (PHC) and outlining the challenges in provision of occupational health services to the all working population. Findings: Iran has fairly good health indicators. More than 85 percent of the population in rural and deprived regions, for instance, have access to primary healthcare services. The PHC centers provide essential healthcare and public-health services for the community. Providing, maintaining and improving of the workers' health are the main goals of occupational health services in Iran that are presented by different approaches and mostly through Workers' Houses in the PHC system. Conclusions: Iran has developed an extensive network of PHC facilities with good coverage in most rural areas, but there are still few remote areas that might suffer from inadequate services. It seems that there is still no transparent policy to collaborate with the private sector, train managers or provide a sustainable mechanism for improving the quality of services. Finally, strengthening national policies for health at work, promotion of healthy work and work environment, sharing healthy work practices, developing updated training curricula to improve human resource knowledge including occupational health professionals are recommended

Occupational Health in Mountainous Kyrgyzstan

Background: In the period of transition from a centralized economy to the market economy, occupational health services in Kyrgyzstan have survived through dramatic, detrimental changes. It is common for occupational health regulations to be ignored and for basic occupational health services across many industrial enterprises and farms to be neglected. Objective: The aim of this study was to demonstrate the present situation and challenges facing occupational health services in Kyrgyzstan. Findings: The transition from centralized to the market economy in Kyrgyzstan has led to increased layoffs of workers and unemployment. These threats are followed by increased workload, and the health and safety of workers becomes of little concern. Private employers ignore occupational health and safety; consequently, there is under-reporting of occupational diseases and accidents. The majority of enterprises, especially those of small or medium size, are unsanitary, and the health status of workers remains largely unknown. The low official rates of occupational diseases are the result of data being deliberately hidden; lack of coverage of working personnel by medical checkups; incompetent management; and the poor quality of staff, facilities, and equipment.Because Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country, the main environmental and occupational factor of enterprises is hypoxia. Occupational health specialists have greatly contributed to the development of occupational medicine in the mountains through science and practice. Conclusions: The enforcement of existing strong occupational health legislation and increased financing of occupational health services are needed. The maintenance of credible health monitoring and effective health services for workers, re-establishment of medical services and sanitary-hygienic laboratories in industrial enterprises, and support for scientific investigations on occupational risk assessment will increase the role of occupational health services in improving the health of the working population

The State of Higher Education in Occupational Health and Safety in Central Asian Countries

A healthy workforce is vital for the sustainable social and economic development of any country. Assuring occupational health and safety (OHS) depends not only on the passing of quality working legislation and inspection of workplaces, but also on preparation of qualified specialists on OHS. Aimed at assessing of relevance of the content of training at Central Asian universities to the needs in prevention of risks of accidents and injuries and promotion of a preventive culture in the workplace, and finding out how they are compliant with the recommendations of the Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into the education (2010), we examined curricula of 20 medical and non-medical universities across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The analysis of training programs showed that education in OHS and preparation of qualified specialists in Central Asiana countries is up-to-date and tailored to local needs for prevention of risks of accidents and injuries and promotes the notion of a preventive culture in the workplace

Basic Occupational Health Services for Agricultural Workers in the South of Iran

The agricultural sector has by far the world’s largest labour force, there are more than one billion workers in this industry worldwide, which contains half of the total world labour force. On the other hand, agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations, and many workers suffer occupational accidents and ill health each year. Farming and animal breeding are associated with exposure to a wide variety of risk factors, including zoonotic agents, dust, elements of the thermal environment, noise, vibration and chemicals. Although half of the world’s population are economically active and spend at least one third of their time in the workplace, only 15% of the workers have access to basic occupational health services. According to a WHO report, Iran has a well-structured health care system through which basic health care services are available to the entire population, and health indicators in Iran have consistently improved. The agricultural health program in Iran is being carried out in the cities and rural areas, and occupational health services are mainly integrated into the health network. This paper aims to describe the health care system and basic occupational health services (BOHs) available to 5,300 agricultural enterprises with 8,380 employees in the cities of Abadan, Khorramshahr and Shadegan in the Abadan region (Abadan, Khoramshahr and Shadegan districts), in the south of Iran

Estimation of Short-term Mortality and Morbidity Attributed to Fine Particulate Matter in the Ambient Air of Eight Iranian Cities

Amongst the various pollutants in the air, particulate matters (PM) have significant adverse effects on human health. The current research is based on existing epidemiological literature for quantitative estimation of the current health impacts related to particulate matters in some selected principal Iranian megacities. In order to find the influence of air pollution on human health, we used the AirQ software tool presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH), Bilthoven Division. The adverse health outcomes used in the study consist of mortality (all causes excluding accidental causes), due to cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory (RES) diseases, and morbidity (hospital admissions for CVD and RES causes). For this purpose, hourly PM10 data were taken from the monitoring stations in eight study cities during 2011 and 2012. Results showed annual average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 in all megacities exceeded national and international air quality standards and even reached levels nearly ten times higher than WHO guidelines in some cities. Considering the short-term effects, PM2.5 had the maximum effects on the health of the 19,048,000 residents of the eight Iranian cities, causing total mortality of 5,670 out of 87,907 during a one-year time-period. Hence, reducing concentrations and controlling air pollution, particularly the presence of particles, is urgent in these metropolises

Emerging Zoonoses: the “One Health Approach”

Zoonoses represent a public health risk recently pointed out by the spreading of previously unknown human infectious diseases emerging from animal reservoirs such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and avian influenza caused by H5N1-virus. These outbreaks have shown that animal breeding activities can pose a significant public health risk. Until now, the risk of zoonoses has probably been underestimated, particularly in occupational settings. The emergence or re-emergence of bacterial (Mycobacterium bovis and Brucella spp) or viral (hepatitis E virus) infections shows that zoonoses should be considered as emerging risks in agricultural and animal breeding and should be addressed by specific preventive interventions. Close cooperation and interaction between veterinarians, occupational health physicians and public health operators is necessary, for a worldwide strategy to expand interdisciplinary collaborations and communications in all aspects of health care for humans, animals and the environment. This is what the One Health Approach was intended to be