Iranian Journal of

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Background & Objectives: Sterpococcosis/lactococcosis is an economically important zoonotic disease in aquaculture industry particularly in farmed rainbow trout. The annual loss due to the disease is tens millions US dollars. This descriptive study was aimed to identify the regional distribution of these economically important bacterial diseases in 50 farmed trout in Charmahal-va-Bakhteyari (25 fish farms) and Kohgiloyeh-va-Boyerahmad (25 fish farms) provinces plus detection of the relative prevalence of the presence of 20 risk factors.
Methods: Each trout farm was clinically inspected to identify the risk factors, followed by sampling of the clinically affected fish for bacteriological and molecular studies.
 Results: The results showed that form 25 fish farms examined in Charmah-va-Bakhteyari, 56.% (13 fish farms) were affected with Lactococcus garvieae and 20%(5 fish farms) were affected with Streptococcus iniae, while these were 64% (16 fish farms) and 12% (3fish farms) in Kohgiloyeh-va-Boyerahmad, respectively. The relative prevalences of the presence of 10 and 16 risk factors were above 80% and 50% in the trout farms of both provinces.
Conclusion: These results clearly demonstrated that occurrence of streptococcosis and lactococcosis in farmed trout has a wide regional distribution in trout farms of these provinces and the presence of risk factors are remarkable in the examined fish farms.

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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.