Investigating the Trend of Changes in Environmental Health Indicators in the Cities of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Provinces during the Years 2007-2016

Environmental health is one of the major challenges of sustainable development in most countries. Environmental health indicators are very important because they reflect the changing state of peoplechr('39')s living environment and the existing health threats. This study aimed to investigate the trend of changes in indicators related to environmental health in the cities of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces during the years 2007-2016.

The present study is a longitudinal retrospective study that uses the data available in the environmental health department in the Health Center of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province The trend of changes in environmental health indicators was examined over ten years. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16.

In the present study, environmental health indicators in rural, urban, and the whole city were analyzed. These indicators include the percentage of rural dwellers with access to sanitary toilets, waste disposal, sewage disposal, livestock waste/manure, improvement percentage, and the hygiene of public places and food preparation and distribution centers, the health cardholders percentage and healthy drinking water in the village, city and the whole city were calculated, Which were 87.3%, 95.4%, 68.4%, 88.9%, 86.7%, 83.9%, 94.3%, and 91.3%, respectively.

The findings of the present study show that except for the index of improvement and sanitation of public places and food preparation and distribution centers, which was not significant in Kohgiluyeh city, other environmental health indicators have improved during ten years, but most indicators were lower than the average indicators set by environmental health experts in the province. This effort requires the authorities to improve the environmental health indicators by providing solutions such as attracting specialized environmental health personnel, applying the laws of Article 688 of public health and Article 13 of cosmetic beverages, and providing the necessary correspondence with the relevant departments to interact.