Iranian Journal of

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Background & Objectives: Community assessment is a key tool for improving and promoting the health of the community. The role of community assessment is to identify the most important factors affecting the population health. To get a comprehensive picture of problems, priorities and suggested community health action plans in Iran, this review aims to summarize community assessments in various areas of Iran conducted between 1992 – 2013.

Methods: This study was a retrospective review in which community assessments were compared and the results of several studies conducted in different regions of the country covering both rural and urban health centers were analyzed. Since 1999, department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics has conducted these community assessments in eight phases and follows 2002 North Carolina Community Health Assessment model. Assessment teams typically included MPH students and/ or PhD and masters (epidemiology) students from the School of Public Health. Data was collected through observation, interview, and focus group discussion. Assessment teams in each region prioritized the list of problems using Hanlon method and Nominal Group Technique.  

Results: The results identified substance abuse, economical, and water-related problems as the most important problems in different parts of the country which indicates the need for developing a comprehensive action plan andimplementing measures.

Conclusion: A review of the community assessments performed in this study shows the ability of community assessment to detect community health problems in all aspects. Therefore, this approach is recommended to evaluate and prioritize health problems and to formulate action plans.

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Background and Objectives: Alcohol consumption among various occupations' staff leads to many problems. Therefore, due to the importance of the issue, this comprehensive study was conducted to determine the prevalence of alcohol consumption among industrial workers.
 
Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the data were collected using a structured questionnaire through interview based on the workers’ self-reports. The participants included 13,128 workers across the country selected by multi-stage cluster sampling according to the population of labor workers and industrial centers in each province. The data were reported according to the consumption prevalence in the 10 spatial planning zones.
 
Results: In the optimistic situation, wokers in Ardebil (10.7%), Kermanshah (10.6%) and Guilan (7.1%) reported the highest frequency of alcohol consumption. The country’s mean prevalence of current consumption was 3.2% and the prevalence of alcohol consumption in life was up to 12.4% in the workers.
 
Conclusion: The data are based on the self-report of the participants. Therefore, the estimated prevalence rate is considered optimistic and below the actual prevalence. In the work environments of the country, especially in provinces with the highest frequency, special policies and interventions are needed to reduce the prevalence of alcohol consumption and minimize the harms caused by it.