Caspian Journal of Health Research
Volume:3 Issue: 3, Sep 2018

The phenomenon of aging is among the important evolution currently happening in Iran. The rise in older adults population presents health policy-makers with new challenges and highlight the need for the evidence of providing and funding services to deal with this phenomenon. The present cross-sectional study was performed on 550 randomly selected older adults from 22 districts of Tehran, Iran in 2017. Data were collected using the household healthcare expenditure questionnaire. The catastrophic health expenditures (CHEs) were defined as health expenditure exceeding 40% of the capacity to pay. The relationship between household characteristics and catastrophic expenditures was determined using multivariate logistic regression model in Stata version 14. The findings showed that 11.1% of older adults were burdened with. The highest frequency of catastrophic expenditures was observed in the first and second income quintiles household size of five and higher, the unemployed, and those with no supplementary insurance. According to the multivariate model, household income was an independent predictor for CHEs. Compared to the first quintiles of income, being at the third quintile decreased the odds of encountering CHEs by 42% and the forth quintiles and higher decreased the odds of CHEs by 78%. This study revealed an obvious prevalence of CHEs among older adults. Lower household income was associated with higher probability of suffering from CHEs

Adolescents are the most frequent fast food consumers. This unhealthy behavior lead to overweight that is associated with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and heart diseases. The present study aimed to determine factors associated with behavior of fast food consumption (FFC) of female high school students based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in the city of Tonekanon, north of Iran. The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 197 female students studying at high school. The constructs of the theory of planned behavior including attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, as well as intention and behavior of fast food consumption were assessed using a pre-tested psychometric questionnaire. Spearman correlation coefficient and linear regression method were used to test the study hypotheses. The constructs of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were accounted for 37.8% in variation of fast food consumption intention. The construct of subjective norms and perceived behavior control was significantly associated with intention of FFC. Intention of FFC was significantly associated with behavior (B coefficient = 0.76,
P-value = 0.001) and predicted 63.8 % of the variance of fast food consumption behavior. The present study showed that the TPB is a powerful theory in predicting FFC behavior. Subjective norms followed by perceived behavioral control were the strongest predictors of FFC intention

Occupational risk factors are one of the major causes of health-related problems of brickfield workers. The purpose of this study was to assess the occupational health illness of the brickfield workers. This cross-sectional study was conducted in the unorganized brick kilns in the south-central part of Bangladesh. Multi-stage probability sampling technique was applied to select brick kilns. A total of 220 workers from 10 brick kilns with one year of working experience were selected. A Standardized Nordic questionnaires and semi-structured respiratory questionnaire was applied for the collection of quantitative information. The mean age of the workers was 39.01 years and most of them were male. The average working experience was 7 years and about 40% of them worked more than 8 hours in a day without any break of the week. A total of 140 subject (79.5%) had musculskeletal pain and 140 subject (63.6%) suffered from respiratory problems. Multivarite logistic regression model showed that type of working was the only independent predictor of both musculuskeletal and respiraory problems. The findings of this study revealed a high prevalence of musculuskeletal and respiraory problems in brick kiln workers. Brick carring was the most hazardous task among workers at brick kiln industeries

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is the most common ulcerative oral lesions. Many factors including genetics, stress, lifestyle, gastric diseases and nutritional habits play a major role in the etiology of recurrent aphthous ulcers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the lifestyle of patients with a history of aphthous stomatitis. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 99 dentistry students with a history of aphthous stomatitis. The control group consisted of 145 dentistry students without any history of the lesion. Demographic information and lifestyle factors including smoking, body mass index, place of living, marital status, regular exercise were recorded. Nutritional habits were evaluated using a modified Food Frequency Questionnaire containing 95 food variables. Independent t-test and Mann Whitney test were used to compare the two groups. Linear regression analysis were used to determine the predictors. There was no significant difference in nutritional habits of study participants. A family history of RAS was more frequently noticed in the case group (43.1%) rather than control group (27.7). Multivariate logistic regression model showed that the most powerful predictors of aphthous lesions were familial history of lesions (OR = 2.4, 95%CI: 1.11-5.13) and food allergy (OR = 4.71, 95%CI: 2.70 to 8.22) respectively. Based on the results of the present study, life style and diet are not associated with aphthous lesions. Considering that aphthous stomatitis is a multifactorial disease, there is a need to study other risk factors and laboratory tests

Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) are the most important arthropods in medicine and health because of the burden of diseases which they transmit such as malaria, encephalitis, filariasis. In 2011, the last checklist of mosquitoes of Guilan Province included 30 species representing 7 genera. Using the main data bases such as Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Scientific Information Database (SID), IranMedex and Magiran which were searched up to August 2018 and reviewing the literature, the available data about the mosquito-borne diseases of Iran and Guilan Province were extracted and analyzed. Also the checklist of mosquitoes of Guilan Province was updated. One protozoal disease (human malaria), two arboviral diseases (West Nile fever, bovine ephemeral fever), two helminthic diseases (dirofilariasis, setariasis) and one bacterial disease (anthrax) have been found in Guilan Province which biologically or mechanically are assumed to transmit by mosquitoes. The updated checklist of mosquitoes of Guilan Province is presented containing 33 species representing 7 or 9 genera according different classifications of the tribe Aedini. There is no information about the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of bovine ephemeral fever and anthrax in Iran and Guilan Province. Also the vectors of dirofilariasis and setariasis are not known in Guilan Province and available data belong to other provinces. It seems that the role of arthropods in the epidemiology of anthrax is not important