Iranian Journal of

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Background and Objectives: Spatial epidemiology is the description and analysis of geographic variations of diseases with respect to demographic, environmental, behavioral, socioeconomic, genetic, and infectious risk factors. Disease mapping includes a set of statistical techniques that lead to providing clean maps based on estimation of the incidence, prevalence and mortality rates for the users to enable them to reliably estimate the distribution of the diseases. In this study, the spatial epidemiology of diarrhea was evaluated in Mazandaran.

Methods: In the present study, statistical methods like the Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation, Anselin local Moran’s I, K function and Ripley index were used to evaluate 4924 cases between 1385-1390, based on certain factors detected in diarrheal diseases.

Results: The results of the global Moran index showed that this disease provided adherence to a cluster pattern in the province. The results of the K function also showed that apart from the western regions of the province, the diarrheal disease followed the above-mentioned cluster pattern. The results of Anselin local Moran and sensitive indicators revealed that the central region of the province, including the cities of Sari, Qaymshmhr, and Babol had the highest prevalence of the disease.

Conclusion: The results showed that the prevalence of syndrome diarrhea follows the pattern cluster and the use of spatial analysis methods in a specific geographic area is appropriate for programs to reduce health risks. And in epidemiological studies, analysis and risk assessment diarrhea syndrome are very important.

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Background and Objectives: One of the applications of population attributable risk percent (PAR%) is to estimate the disease burden in a population exposed to several risk factors. Therefore, this study was conducted to estimates the PAR% of the space-time clusters of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Methods: In this study, the data of pulmonary TB cases were obtained from the health department of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences. After detecting significant clusters using the spatiotemporal scan statistic, PAR% was used to analyze the clusters and to detect the location of clusters more accurately.

Results: Four primary space-time clusters and three secondary spatiotemporal clusters were detected for patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and 92% of the patients who did not have a clear state in term of HIV infection. Despite differences in the location of clusters and PAR%  attributed to them, the second primary cluster of pulmonary tuberculosis cases (consisting of the cities of Razan, Famenain and Kabudrahang) had the highest amount of PAR% that needs more attention.

Conclusion: The presence of significance spatiotemporal clusters in Hamadan highlights the necessity of the use of PAR% to distinguish cluster areas and to implement prevention and control policy. However, more analytical studies are needed to detect the on the determinants of the occurrence of pulmonary TB.

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Background and Objectives: Using the anthropometric indicators of children is one of the ways of monitoring their growth. Because of the racial divisions and levels of health and welfare, comparing these indicators with the global reference is not reasonable; therefore, designing a local reference seems necessary. This study aimed to evaluate the growth indices for boys and girls aged 5 to 18 years old living in Isfahan and to compare the indices with standard values.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 53,839 subjects were included. Percentiles of body mass index, height, and weight were calculated using the LMS method in the LMS Light software. After normalization of the growth indices, their mean and standard deviation were calculated for each age group and anthropometric indices curves were plotted versus the 5th, 50th and 95th percentiles of the NCHS reference.
Results: In all age categories, the mean SDS scores of BMI in boys and girls was -0.004 ± 0.029 and 0.014 ± 0.062, respectively, indicating no difference with reference values. However, the 95th percentile of the body mass index for the reference population was consistent with the 90th percentile for the population studied. Also, weight in boys below 13 years of age was higher than the reference line while in girls, weight was always higher than the reference value.
Conclusion: Due to differences in the pattern of growth and also lower anthropometric values, particularly among boys, it seems that a national growth curve can be a better guide for future decisions.

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Background and Objectives: Burns are tragic events with considerable mortality rates. This study was conducted to analyze the spatial pattern of burns and identify the factors associated with the burn injuries in Mashhad, Iran.
 
Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in patients hospitalized in Imam Reza Hospital Burn Center, Mashhad, which is the only referral burn center in the northeast of Iran. Spatial generalized linear models (Poisson and negative binomial) were used to model the association between socio-economic characteristics and the incidence of burn injury.
 
Results: A total of 1044 acute burn patients (69.9% male, 30.1% female) were reviewed. Most of the burned patients were in the age group 20-29 years (41.4%). The most common cause of burn injury was flame (64.6%). The local test of spatial autocorrelation confirmed that the burns had cluster pattern in the central areas of the city and the worn-out urban texture was at higher risk of burns. The results of model showed that the percentage of worn-out urban texture (IRR =1.007; 95%CI 1.005-1.008), literacy (IRR =0.98; 95% CI 0.95-0.99), percentage of employed women (IRR =0.96; 95%CI 0.92-0.99), unemployment rate (IRR =0.92; 95%CI 0.85-0.99) and percentage of margination (IRR =1.006; 95%CI 1.005-1.008) were associated with burns.
 
Conclusion: Based on the findings, socio-economic and environmental characteristics are associated with the incidence of burn injuries in different areas. The results of this study could be used to design burn prevention strategies, especially in the high-risk areas and groups.