Health effects of air pollution in worldwide countries: an ecological study

Background and aims: Air pollution is one of the health problems worldwide. Previous epidemiological studies have investigated the impacts of air pollution on respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to determine the associations between air pollution levels and different health indicators among world countries. Methods: This ecological study was performed in 2013 by using dataset of World Health Organization (WHO). The main variable in our study was air pollution index. The data including Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) (per 100000 live births), Life Expectancy at birth (LE), preterm birth rate (per 1000 live births) and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) death rate (per 100000 populations) from 91 countries were extracted. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess the linear correlation between air pollution and investigated indexes using Stata 11. Results: MMR (r=0.36, P=0.001) and NCD death rate (r=0.31, P=0.002) were positively associated with air pollution level. The rate of air pollution was also negatively associated with LE among world countries (r=-0.57, P=0.001). Our findings have not shown any significant liner association between air pollution and preterm birth rate (r=0.14, P=0.41). Conclusion: Our results are in agreement with other recent findings that there is an association between air pollution and health indexes, especially mortality rate. Accordingly, from a public health perspective, reducing pollutant emissions to outdoor air should be a high priority for all countries

The reliability of self-reporting chronic diseases: how reliable is the result of population-based cohort studies

Objectives: To evaluate the reliability of self-reporting chronic diseases in the baseline data of the Ravansar Non-Communicable Diseases (RaNCD) cohort study in Kermanshah province, western Iran.Methods: The study was conducted in RaNCD cohort study. To assess the reliability of self-report of chronic disease, a random sample of 202 participants were asked about some of chronic conditions 30-35 days (mean=32) after recruitment.Results: A range of kappa agreement between 39.52-100%, which the lower statistics was for hypertension and hepatitis and the higher one for cancer, cardiac ischemic, and diabetes.Conclusion: The self-report of chronic diseases was highly reliable. Therefore self-reporting data for some conditions can be used in situations where the validity is acceptable

Developing a Permutation Method Using Tabu Search Algorithm: A Case Study of Ranking Some Countries of West Asia and North Africa Based on Important Development Criteria

The recent years have witnessed an increasing attention to the methods of multiple attribute decision making in solving the problems of the real world due to their shorter time of calculation and easy application. One of these methods is the ‘permutation method’ which has a strong logic in connection with ranking issues, but when the number of alternatives increases, solving problems through this method becomes NP-hard. So, meta-heuristic algorithm based on Tabu search is used to find optimum or near optimum solutions at a reasonable computational time for large size problems. This research is an attempt to apply the ‘permutation method’ to rank some countries of the West Asia and the North Africa based on the development criteria. Knowing the situation of each country as compared with other countries, particularly the respective neighbouring countries, is one of the most important standards for the assessment of performance and planning for the future activities

Self-Rated Health among General Population in the West of Iran: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Socioeconomic Determinants

Background: Self-rated health (SRH), as a powerful independent predictor of mortality, has been used worldwide.However, there is currently lack of information about the SRH in Iran as a developing country. This study was conductedto investigate the relationship between SRH and socioeconomic factors in the general population in western Iran.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 enrolling 1,444 subjects aged 18 years and over in fiveareas of Kermanshah City, Iran. A single question of SRH with five scales of excellent (coded as 1), very good, good,fair, or poor (coded as 5) was used. Univariate and multiple logistic regression models were performed to determinefactors associated with poor self-rated health.Results: The proportion of poor SRH was 14.7%. Multiple logistic regression showed that the most importantdeterminants of poor SRH were older age (adjusted odds ratio (AOR)31-50year=1.96, AOR≥51year=4.93, married status(AOR=2.53), divorced or widowed status (AOR=2.62), self-reported income level as middle (AOR=2.51) andlow (AOR=4.59), rural residency (AOR=1.5), low physical activity (AOR=11.97), and having chronic diseases(AOR=6.85). In addition, the educational level had a negative relationship with poor SRH (AOR academic=0.47).Conclusion: Our results revealed that both individual and social factors are directly associated with poor SRH.Therefore, these determinant factors should be considered in health policies and planning for promoting health andSRH in the west of Iran

The Epidemiological Aspects of Tuberculosis in Hamadan Province during 2005–11

Background: Epidemiological information on tuberculosis (TB) is required to plan control and prevention strategies and to inform service delivery systems. The aim of present study was to determine the epidemiological status of TB in Hamadan Province covering a seven-year period. Methods: In this cross-sectional study all registered TB patients suffering from any form of smear-positive, smearnegative or extra pulmonary from 2005 to 2011 were assessed. Age-adjusted incidence trend was studied. The CochranArmitage (C-A) test was used for testing the trends over time. Results: The mean age of TB patients was 57.0 (±21.1), 49.9% were males, 52.8% were aged 61 years or older and 39.7% were rural residents. Previous history of jailed was present in 13 (2.2%) patients and 12 (2.0%) were HIV positive. From all TB patients, 60.8% were smear-positive, 87.6% were new cases, and 87.3% of smear-positive patients were cured cases. Also, 23.6% patients had history of hospitalization for TB. More than half (55.4%) of TB patients were reported by public health system. Age-adjusted incidence rates of all TB cases during 2005–11 was 3.4, 3.2, 3.6, 4.7, 3.3, 4.4 and 7.3 in 100,000 respectively (C-A trend test, P< 0.001). Conclusion: Although, the incidence rate of TB in Hamadan Province is lower than country’s average, increasing trend of TB incidence is not concordant with its decreasing trend in Iran. An epidemiological study is required to evaluate risk factors associated with TB to identify ways to decrease the prevalence of TB

Quality of Cohort Studies Reporting Post the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement

The quality of reporting of cohort studies published in the most prestigious scientific medical journals was investigated to indicate to what extent the items in the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist are addressed. Six top scientific medical journals with high impact factor were selected including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, British Medical Journal, Archive of Internal Medicine, and Canadian Medical Association Journal. Ten cohort studies published in 2010 were selected randomly from each journal. The percentage of items in the STROBE checklist that were addressed in each study was investigated. The total percentage of items addressed by these studies was 69.3 (95% confidence interval: 59.6 to 79.0). We concluded that reporting of cohort studies published in the most prestigious scientific medical journals is not clear enough yet. The reporting of other types of observational studies such as case-control and cross-sectional studies particularly those being published in less prestigious journals expected to be much more imprecise

The epidemiological aspects of tuberculosis in Hamadan Province during 2005–11

Background: Epidemiological information on tuberculosis (TB) is required to plan control and prevention strategies and to inform service delivery systems. The aim of present study was to determine the epidemiological status of TB in Hamadan Province covering a seven-year period. Methods: In this cross-sectional study all registered TB patients suffering from any form of smear-positive, smear- negative or extra pulmonary from 2005 to 2011 were assessed. Age-adjusted incidence trend was studied. The Cochran- Armitage (C-A) test was used for testing the trends over time. Results: The mean age of TB patients was 57.0 (±21.1), 49.9% were males, 52.8% were aged 61 years or older and 39.7% were rural residents. Previous history of jailed was present in 13 (2.2%) patients and 12 (2.0%) were HIV positive. From all TB patients, 60.8% were smear-positive, 87.6% were new cases, and 87.3% of smear-positive patients were cured cases. Also, 23.6% patients had history of hospitalization for TB. More than half (55.4%) of TB patients were reported by public health system. Age-adjusted incidence rates of all TB cases during 2005–11 was 3.4, 3.2, 3.6, 4.7, 3.3, 4.4 and 7.3 in 100,000 respectively (C-A trend test, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Although, the incidence rate of TB in Hamadan Province is lower than country’s average, increasing trend of TB incidence is not concordant with its decreasing trend in Iran. An epidemiological study is required to evaluate risk factors associated with TB to identify ways to decrease the prevalence of TB

Decomposing socioeconomic inequality in poor mental health among Iranian adult population: results from the PERSIAN cohort study

Background Socioeconomic inequality in mental health in Iran is poorly understood. This study aimed to assess socioeconomic inequality in poor mental health among Iranian adults. Methods The study used the baseline data of PERSIAN cohort study including 131,813 participants from 17 geographically distinct areas of Iran. The Erreygers Concentration index (E) was used to quantify the socioeconomic inequalities in poor mental health. Moreover, we decomposed the E to identify factors contributing to the observed socioeconomic inequality in poor mental health in Iran. Results The estimated E for poor mental health was - 0.012 (95% CI: - 0.0144, - 0.0089), indicating slightly higher concentration of mental health problem among socioeconomically disadvantaged adults in Iran. Socioeconomic inequality in poor mental health was mainly explained by gender (19.93%) and age (12.70%). Region, SES itself, and physical activity were other important factors that contributed to the concentration of poor mental health among adults with low socioeconomic status. Conclusion There exists nearly equitable distribution in poor mental health among Iranian adults, but with important variations by gender, SES, and geography. These results suggested that interventional programs in Iran should focus on should focus more on socioeconomically disadvantaged people as a whole, with particular attention to the needs of women and those living in more socially disadvantaged regions. Keywords:Mental health; Socioeconomic inequality; Concentration index; Decompositio

Burden of injury along the development spectrum : associations between the Socio-demographic Index and disability-adjusted life year estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background The epidemiological transition of non-communicable diseases replacing infectious diseases as the main contributors to disease burden has been well documented in global health literature. Less focus, however, has been given to the relationship between sociodemographic changes and injury. The aim of this study was to examine the association between disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from injury for 195 countries and territories at different levels along the development spectrum between 1990 and 2017 based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 estimates. Methods Injury mortality was estimated using the GBD mortality database, corrections for garbage coding and CODEm-the cause of death ensemble modelling tool. Morbidity estimation was based on surveys and inpatient and outpatient data sets for 30 cause-of-injury with 47 nature-of-injury categories each. The Socio-demographic Index (SDI) is a composite indicator that includes lagged income per capita, average educational attainment over age 15 years and total fertility rate. Results For many causes of injury, age-standardised DALY rates declined with increasing SDI, although road injury, interpersonal violence and self-harm did not follow this pattern. Particularly for self-harm opposing patterns were observed in regions with similar SDI levels. For road injuries, this effect was less pronounced. Conclusions The overall global pattern is that of declining injury burden with increasing SDI. However, not all injuries follow this pattern, which suggests multiple underlying mechanisms influencing injury DALYs. There is a need for a detailed understanding of these patterns to help to inform national and global efforts to address injury-related health outcomes across the development spectrum.Peer reviewe