gh. moradi

Forest ecosystems, especialy in protected areas, have high environmental importance. On the other hand, the vegetation of Dena protected area is facing many socioeconomic problems from the local communities, which is always caused decreasing in quantity and quality. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the relationship between vegetation changes over time and the economic and social factors of the villages in Dena protected area.

To carry out this research, 384 questionnaires were completed by the villagers in nine villages. To obtain the sample size, Cochran's formula was used, and the opinions of professors and experts were used to check the validity of the questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha method was also used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. In order to analyze the data, the villages were clustered economicaly and socialy based on the K-means algorithm. Afterward, the changes in forest surface were estimated using Landsat satellite images, and then the relationship between vegetation cover changes in the villages of different clusters was investigated using Spearman's test.

According to the results of satellite images, the average change in the area of forests, which was 618.38 hectares in 2001, has decreased to 578.32 hectares in 2021, and on the other hand, the average area of agricultural land, which  was 247.10 hectares in 2001, increased to 277.96 hectares in 2021. According to the results of Spearman's test, the changes in forest cover have a significant relationship with the economic issues of the studied villages (P<0.05), on the other hand, the social issues of the villages do not have a significant effect on the changes in vegetation cover.

According to the results of the Spearman test, there is a strong and significant relationship between the economic problems of the villagers and changes in vegetation. Economic factors in the clustered villages, such as income from agriculture and horticulture, income from livestock farming and forest products, land-use conversion of forests and rangelands, and various sectoral expenses, have led to extensive degradation of forests and rangelands in the vicinity of these villages.

The Dry Reforming of Methane, which uses methane and carbon dioxide, the two greenhouse gasses, to produce synthesis gas, has received considerable attention recently. In this work, the equilibrium conversion that is the maximum possible conversion has been obtained experimentally and theoretically. The equilibrium concentration for the Dry Reforming of Methane (DRM) has been calculated using Thermodynamic equilibrium and compared with the experimental equilibrium concentration. The reaction coordinate (ε), Gibbs free energy (G), reaction equilibrium constant (K), and reaction stoichiometric coefficients are used for the calculation of the reaction progress and the equilibrium composition in DRM at different temperatures. These parameters have been calculated by two primary methods, direct and Lagrange, and compared with an empirical equilibrium that has been revealed by the activity test on Ni/Al2O3 catalyst. The result shows that none of those can’t make an exact determination of empirical equilibrium compositions, but there was a relatively good agreement between the Lagrange method and the empirical equilibrium. No significant difference has been observed between these methods and empirical conditions at high temperature.

According to the global strategy for polio eradication, targeted surveillance of the disease is one of the main tasks of the health system. The purpose of this study was to review the status and surveillance of poliomyelitis/acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in Iran.

The present study was a review on the processes, structures and achievements of the poliomyelitis/AFP surveillance system in Iran during 2017-2019. The data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control; a review of the records, documents, books and published articles; and interviews with process owners and experts of poliomyelitis/AFP surveillance.

The polio eradication program in Iran is based on the action plan of the World Health Organization that was introduced initially in 1988. Currently, the surveillance system of AFP is active at three levels: country, university, and city. The number of poliomyelitis cases in the country decreased from 50 cases per year in 1985 to zero in 2001, and Iran has been a polio-free country since 2001. The final report on polio eradication in Iran was approved by the regional commission on polio detection in April 2006.

The surveillance system of AFP has had a proper effectiveness throughout the country. Maintaining this situation in the country requires an increase in the sensitivity of the surveillance system of the disease, regular monitoring of vaccine coverage, strict implementation of international health regulations, especially on the eastern borders of the country, and providing technical assistance to neighboring countries.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, progressive disease of the joints that presents with articular and systemic symptoms. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and its relationship with body mass index.

This descriptive-analytical study was performed in 195 patients with rheumatoid arthritis in Tohid Hospital, Sanandaj, Iran. The data collection tool was a questionnaire including demographic and clinical characteristics. The SF-36 instrument was used to evaluate the quality of life.

In the study, 40% of men and 58% of women had a disease severity higher than 2.6 according to the Disease Activity Score 28. There was a significant difference in all dimensions of quality of life including physical function, energy / fatigue and general health between men and women (P <0.05). All dimensions of quality of life were inversely correlated with BMI. There was a significant relationship between the disease severity and each of the dimensions of pain, general health and general changes (P <0.05).

Quality of life in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is correlated with body mass index and severity of rheumatoid arthritis; therefore, it seems that health policy makers or clinical practitioners need to pay more attention to these two factors to increase the patients’ quality of life.

Elimination and eradication of measles requires designing and implementing an enhanced surveillance system. The purpose of this study was to review the measles surveillance system in Iran.

The data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control; a review of the records, documents, books, and published articles; and interviews with process owners and experts of measles surveillance in 2017-2019.

Iran has a surveillance plan to eliminate the measles. The current design for suspected cases of measles in Iran is a case-based surveillance system, in which for each identified case with fever and maculopapular rashes, some activities such reporting, laboratory confirmation, clinical and epidemiological investigation and case registration in individual forms are done.

Complete surveillance of cases suspicious of measles and high coverage of vaccination in children less than 2 years in a cohesive surveillance system and rapid response to the outbreak have led to lack of occurrence of indigenous measles in Iran. Although the current status of the measles surveillance system in Iran seems to be favorable, since Iran is at the stage of measles elimination, it is essential to increase the sensitivity of the reporting system for suspected cases of measles and to maintain the status of vaccine coverage to save elimination status.

The purpose of this study was to present a summary of the rabies surveillance program in humans in the country, its achievements and its strengths and weaknesses.

This study was a review of the country's plan for surveillance and control of rabies in humans. The sources of information included the data, reports, documents, and published guidelines. The viewpoints of stakeholders and experts were also reviewed in this study.

Since rabies is a zoonotic disease, its effective management requires a good collaboration between several organizations. Moreover, because Iran is located in an endemic region, there is a need for the development of regional and international cooperation for the success of disease prevention, control and management. Animal services for biting and rabies control are provided free of charge in more than 700 centers in the country. Major achievements of the program include timely preventive treatment for animal bite cases, knowledge of the geographical distribution of the disease, identification of high-risk provinces, and decreasing the percentage of human deaths.

The program has performed well for rabies secondary prevention. Some aspects of the program, however, still need to be improved, including improvement of educational programs targeting general population and high-risk groups, animal bite prevention, vaccination of domestic dogs, controlling the population of stray dogs, rabies control in wild animals, and proper waste collection and disposal.

Underground box culverts have been applied to facilitate people's living standard in various ways including municipal sewer lines, water mains, gas and oil lines, electric and telecommunication conduits, and pedestrian and subway tunnels. Design and construction of these conduits demand determining exerted pressure due to the soil and embankment weight above. Several ways have been developed for buried culverts and calculating the soil earth to which the buried culvert is subjected to. Accordingly, the applied load is large and culverts are installed under high embankment; applied pressure becomes more significant. Therefore, the reduction and control of the earth load on culverts is of importance. To date, various methods and theories have been proposed to reduce the applied earth load on these underground structures. Among these, two methods are commonly used: Trench Installation (TI) and Induced Trench Installation (ITI). For the TI method, where the culvert is placed in a narrow trench, the deformable soil tends to settle down, while the adjacent trench walls hold the soil in place due to shearing stresses along the interfaces. This leads to the transfer of load from the fill to the trench walls developing soil arching, hence reducing the vertical pressure transfer to buried box culvert. Another method, ITI, is a construction technique employed to reduce the vertical pressure on buried structure, in which a layer of compressible material is placed directly on the buried culvert to induce positive arching thus reducing the applied vertical pressure on culvert crown. Meanwhile, researchers have addressed some deficiencies in each method. Trench Installation in comparison with Induced trench Installation transfers larger earth load to culvert roof. In addition, the development of positive arching directly above the culvert roof transfers more vertical stresses to adjacent soil columns, leading to larger horizontal stresses applied to buried culvert walls. In this study, by taking benefits of these two common methods, an installation method has been proposed in which the culvert is installed in a trench with a layer of deformable material placed above the box culvert roof, called Trenched Induced Trench Installation (TITI). Firstly, the pressure transferred to the culvert under the weight of soil and surface pressure has been validated using numerical analyses compared with analytical equations that predict the applied pressure. Then, two-dimensional finite element analyses have been performed to explore the effect of various factors on the applied pressure on the roof, sidewalls, and bottom of buried box culvert in TITI method. Results show that soil arching reduces the earth pressure on roof and arching developed between box sidewalls and trench walls; the pressure applied on the culvert side walls can be controlled.

Over the past decades, the Iran’s anti-tuberculosis campaign has become highly structured and many achievements have been made. The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of the TB surveillance system and its components in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
 

The data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control, a review of the records, documents, books and published articles, and also interviews with process owners and experts of TB surveillance during 2017-2019.
 

Case finding and treatment and follow-up of TB patients and their household contacts are done In the TB surveillance system. The implementation of the DOTS, (DIRECTLY OBSERVED TREATMENT SHORT-Course) is a major component of the TB surveillance system. Patient registration is done in an online application, which allows extracting and reporting the important indicators of the program. In this surveillance system, there is a special sensitivity to the treatment of patients, so the incidence of multi drug-resistant TB in the country is lower than that of the neighbors. The presence of regional laboratories that cover the entire region of the country is one of the strengths of the TB surveillance program in Iran.
 

Despite budget problems, the anti-TB program in Iran has many achievements. However, new strategies need to be considered to reduce the incidence of TB.

Iran started malaria elimination campaigns many years ago. The purpose of this study was to review the malaria surveillance system in Iran.
 

The data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control, a review of records, documents, books and published articles, and also interviews with process owners and experts of malaria surveillance in 2017-2019.
 

The surveillance system of malaria in Iran has a coherent structure, in which all identified cases are reported and monitored from the environmental levels to the center by telephone instantly. Considering that the main goals of the malaria program including disease elimination have been obtained, the surveillance system in Iran is currently aiming at strengthening the elimination phase. In this stage, all new cases are also epidemiologically investigated in addition to examination, treatment and follow-up for categorization of the cases in categories of relapse, indigenous, introduced, and induced.
 

The successful implementation of the surveillance system for malaria over time has caused indigenous cases of disease to be limited to three southeastern provinces of the country and there are fewer than 300 new cases a year. Despite success, since the goal of malaria surveillance in Iran is now disease elimination, continuous monitoring of  correct implementation of all processes and evaluation of the applied strategies are necessary.

To provide an overview of the national program of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever surveillance in Iran, its current achievements, and challenges. 

In this mixed method study, the relevant reports, documents, and guidelines, as well as published literature and surveillance data were gathered and critically reviewed. The opinions of the key informants at local and governmental levels were assessed through structured interviews. 

The program was integrated into Iran’s primary healthcare (PHC) network in 1999. The involved organizations include CDC, medical universities, Pasteur Institute of Iran (PII), and Veterinary Organization. Case finding is based on standard definitions of suspected, probable, and confirmed cases. Laboratory confirmation is necessary for diagnosis and is provided within 48 hours after receipt of the specimen by the National Reference Laboratory of PII. CCHF treatment is primarily supportive. Antiviral therapy with ribavirin is also considered. Both therapeutic services are free. Education mainly focuses on high-risk groups and healthcare workers. Major achievements of the program include rapid diagnosis and treatment of cases, prevention of nosocomial transmission, identification of high-risk provinces and major transmission routes, improved outbreak preparedness, development of laboratory tests for detection of other arboviruses, and reduction of CCHF case fatality rate. 

Program implementation has had a positive impact on early detection and proper control of annual outbreaks. However, some aspects of the program still need improvement, including promotion of the general and high-risk populations’ awareness and regional collaborations (especially among neighboring countries) for infection control in humans, livestock, and vectors.

Iran is one of the Middle Eastern countries that implemented the HIV / AIDS control and surveillance program many years ago. The purpose of this study was to review the HIV / AIDS surveillance system in Iran.

This was a review research to assess the processes, structures and achievements of the HIV/AIDS surveillance system in Iran. The information sources of this study included data from the surveillance system, reports and documentation, and published guidelines, reviewing existing structures and views of managers and practitioners of the HIV/AIDS surveillance system in Iran.

In Iran, all cases with HIV / AIDS as well as people with high risk behaviors are referred to behavioral disease counseling centers in order to receive health care services. Harm reduction in people with risky behaviors in the form of counseling centers, drug addicts' centers, and women's counseling centers in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organizations, and attention to the second generation of HIV/AIDS surveillance, particularly conducting behavioral studies, are other components of the HIV / AIDS surveillance system in Iran

Although the HIV / AIDS surveillance system in Iran has a large structure with many achievements in reducing new HIV cases, especially in some high-risk groups such as injecting drug users, as well as reducing HIV transmission from infected mothers to their children, strengthening this surveillance system, especially for sexual high-risk groups, is essential for controlling HIV/AIDS in the country.

Iran has long been considered to be one of the countries in the world with endemic brucellosis. The aim of this study was to review the surveillance system of brucellosis in Iran.

Data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control, the review of records, documents, books and published articles and also interviews with process owners and experts of brucellosis surveillance in 2017-2019.

In the current surveillance system in Iran, all patients with brucellosis will undergo standard treatment for at least 2 months. The patient identified at each site, private or public sector, reports to the health center of the city. After reporting cases to higher levels, city health center carried out required epidemiologic investigation in the place of reported case in collaboration with its environmental levels. Finally, the individual assessment form, epidemiologic investigation form, for reported case is completed and registered in national surveillance database.

Although integration of the brucellosis surveillance program into the health system of the country and reporting and treatment of human cases in accordance with the country's protocol in recent years is well executed, brucellosis control in Iran requires the one health approach. Accordingly, it can be concluded that despite the decrease in the number of brucellosis cases in recent years, the weakness in livestock surveillance has led to many fluctuations in the health system's success in providing surveillance for human cases of brucellosis.

Iran, like most other countries in the world, is always threatened with global epidemics and pandemics of influenza. The purpose of this study was to review the influenza surveillance system in Iran.

Data of this study were obtained from the surveillance system of the Center for Communicable Disease Control, the review of records, documents, books and published articles and also interviews with process owners and experts of influenza surveillance in 2017-2019.

Influenza surveillance in Iran Currently, a combination of surveillance methods, including caring for patients, laboratory care, hospital care and surveillance of respiratory disease epidemics and also border surveillance. Reporting of human influenza outbreaks, as well as suspected avian flu as main notifiable diseases carried out through telephone. For each suspect case, in addition to taking and sending a sample to diagnose and also detect subtypes of the virus, medical treatment is immediately initiated and tracking of possible contacts is also done.

Although there is currently good coherence in the surveillance of influenza in Iran, but based on concerns about the emergence of influenza pandemics in the future, and considering the possible genetic variation of the flu viruses, the tracking of the flu virus circulation along with updating surveillance system especially emphasizing methods and formulas for rapid identification of disease outbreaks, as well as providing better health care and treatment is essential.

Reinforcing soils with geosynthetics is an effective method for improving the uplift capacity of buried pipelines.The pullout resistance of the reinforcing elements is one of the most notable factors in increasing the uplift capacity. In this paper, a new reinforcing element including the anchors attached to the ordinary geogrid, namely grid-anchors, was used for increasing the pullout resistance of the geogrid. An experimental study was performed to investigate the uplift resistance of the pipelines buried in sand reinforced with this system. Then, 37 experimental models and 33 numerical models were conducted to investigate the effect of pipe diameter, soil moisture content, soil type, pipe burial depth, the location of reinforcement layers installation, as well as the number of reinforcement layers and the width of reinforcement layers on the uplift resistance of granular soils. The PIV method reveals that due to a developed longer failure surface, inclusion of grid-anchor system in a soil deposit significantly increases the uplift capacity. Therefore the grid-anchor system of reinforcing can increase the uplift capacity 2.5 times greater than that for an ordinary geogrid and 4 times greater than that for non-reinforced sand. Compared to the multilayer reinforcement, the single layer reinforcement was more effective in enhancing the uplift capacity. Besides, the efficiency of reinforcement layer inclusion for uplift resistance in lower embedment ratios is higher. In addition, by increasing the pipe diameter, the efficiency of the reinforcement layer inclusion will be lower. There appears the efficiency of reinforcement layer inclusion for uplift resistance in the single layer reinforcement with higher width and installed in the pipe bottom; lower embedment ratios and lower pipe diameter are higher. To verify the experimental results and completion of research, the finite deference software FLAC-3D was used. It was found that experimental and numerical results were in good agreement.

Life satisfaction is one of the important dimensions of health, which is influenced by health determinants. The aim of this study was to investigate the status of socioeconomic inequalities in satisfaction with life in women aged 15-54 in Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, randomized multistage cluster sampling with equal clusters was done to select the participants. A total of 35,305 women aged 15-55 were enrolled in the study. Data analysis was done in two stages. In the first stage, social and economic inequalities were investigated using the concentration index and concentration curve method. In the second stage, a multilevel method was used to identify the determinants.

The mean life satisfaction was 12.81±4.23. The concentration index for dissatisfaction with life was -0.06 [95% CI: -0.1, -0.02], indicating dissatisfaction with life in low socioeconomic groups. The results of multilevel analysis showed that age, marital status, occupation, place of living, education, and the economic class correlated with dissatisfaction with life in women (P<0.05).

There is inequality in dissatisfaction with life. Dissatisfaction is concentrated in the poorer groups of the society and varies in different provinces. Socioeconomic variables affect inequality in satisfaction with life in women, which need to be addressed to reduce inequalities

In order to determine the workload of health workers(Behvarz), this research was conducted for work measurement and time assessment in rural health centers(health house).
This cross sectional study was conducted in 30 health centers during a routine working day in Saghez in 2015 using the “stop watch method”. The time and frequency of the processes were recorded in a checklist. We estimated and compared spent, standard, expected and pessimistic time, and also the mean repetition for each process per day and month as the unit of time.
The mean real working time was about 157.5 minutes (33%) per day, which was mostly (35.5 minutes) spent on the affairs of health volunteers. Care for non-communicable diseases was the most frequent task with an average of 2.4 times per day. In a month, family planning was undertaken more than other processes. The time of most activities like mother care, elderly care, care for communicable and non-communicable disease was significantly lower than the expected and pessimistic times (P The time spent by health workers was low and unscheduled, particularly for important activities of primary health care. It seems that it is necessary to revise the models and methods of service provision in health centers. Efficient use of existing personnel, reducing unnecessary activities and adding more service packages according to the health system priority seem to be important requirements in the first level of health system.

Although Up to 90% of adolescents with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remain functionally impaired, but less than half continue to take medication. In developing countries little is known about factors influencing willingness to use the treatment. This paper has assessed views on willingness to use treatment in groups involved in ADHD.
17 adolescents with ADHD referred to Tehran Psychiatric Institute participated in this qualitative study by available sampling .Focus Group discussions (FGD) were conducted in two groups of adolescents and two groups of their parents and teachers. Deep interviews were done with two pediatricians and data analyzed with Content analysis method.
The most important factors influenced willingness to use the treatment, in all of groups consist of side-effects expectations, concerns regarding social stigma of medication, incorrect perceptions and low knowledge about ADHD and its treatment, cost and unavailability of treatment options. All groups confirm effectiveness of medications but adolescents had lowest willingness to use the treatment.
Involvement of adolescents in treatment decision-making may increase willingness to use the treatment. Totally, despite of all treatment obstacles, all of the groups accepted medication is inevitable.

Evaluation is one of the main components of communicable diseases surveillance. Despite the World Health Organization’s emphasis for preparation of evaluation tools, there is no suitable tool in Iran. This study aimed to prepare a tool for evaluation of communicable diseases surveillance in hospitals and to pilot it.
Items were prepared in the first step and the first version of questionnaire was developed. Face validity and content validity were checked. Piloting of the questionnaire was done in Tabriz hospitals. Data were entered into SPSS 18. For evaluation of reliability, internal consistency was measured using Cronbach's α and Kuder-Richardson.
According to the results, we developed a questionnaire containing 29 questions in 5 domains with 20 indexes. Fifteen hospitals (78.9%) had a communicable diseases reporting system. The goals of reporting system were not described in these hospitals and only 2 (13.3%) hospitals had supporting laws. None of the hospitals had complete access to the surveillance system and reporting tools.
The developed questionnaire can be a useful tool to evaluate the communicable diseases surveillance system in hospitals. The reporting systems in the hospitals are not complete.

Responsiveness is a response to the reasonable expectations of people about non-clinical aspects of the health system. The purpose of this paper was to assess the responsiveness of the health system after the first year of the health system reform in Sanandaj in 2015.
This descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional study was conducted on 646 households in Sanandaj. The World Health Survey (WHS) questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data was analyzed with SPSS 16 as well as descriptive statistics and ANOVA.
All dimensions of responsiveness, except for choice, were 100% important according to the respondents. In inpatient services, social support (100%) and confidentiality (96%) had the best performance while communication had the worst performance (49%). In outpatient services, confidentiality (100%) and autonomy (42%) had the best and worst performance, respectively. In inpatient wards, a significant difference only in “quick attention” dimension was observed among responsiveness dimensions with regards to proprietorship of the health care center (P-value=0.03). On the contrary, this difference was not significant in outpatient wards.
In this study, communication (time to ask questions about health problem/treatment, clarity of providers explanations), autonomy (participation in treatment decision-making, possibility of obtaining information on other types of treatment) and quality of basic amenities (cleanliness inside the health facility, available space in waiting and examination rooms) were identified as priority areas for actions to improve the responsiveness of the health care services.

Tuberculosis is an emerging and reemerging disease and standard tre-atments are used to control this disease all around the world these days. If TB trea-tment side effects are not early diagnosed, these side effects can be costly and very dangerous. The aim of this study was the assessment of TB treatment side effects and its determining factors.

This study is desc-riptive-analytical and cross-sectional. Do-cuments of all patients diagnosed with TB were used from the beginning of April 2005 to the end of the September 2012 in Kh-uzestan province. The instruments for data collection included a checklist and demo-graphic variables for collecting the required data. The collected data was analyzed thr-ough SPSS-16 software by Chi-square, Ind-ependent t and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

The overall 6363 TB patients with the mean age of 18±39.3 years were identified and studied. Side effects in 106 (1.66%) patients were associated with TB treatment during the treatment period. The most common complication was Hepatitis in 52 cases (49.05%). Side effects incidence had a significant relationship with gender, kind of disease, HIV infection, and result of chest radiography (P˂0.05). Discussion &

High incidence of complications in TB treatment among patients with over 65 years age and less than 4 years age and HIV infection cause disorder in TB controlling. Thus, training and protective measures and periodical as-sessment is recommended.

Nano-fibrous mats are one of the unique nonwoven materials that have been recently carried out in nanofiltration industry. The aim of this study was to synthesize nano-fibrous path mats using electrospining method following by determination of their efficiency for nanoaerosols removal. The efficiency and pressure drop of nano-fibrous mats was measured using nano-scale sucrose aerosols with the particle size range of 70 -700 nm at different flow rates of 1.58 - 5 m.s -1. Cylindrical test system in a form of stainless steel with a filtration surface of 130 cm2 was built. Desired particles were generated using Electro spray 3480 model particle generator. Condensation particle counter PMS Models Micro LPS DAS of Boulder Company was used to measure the particle number concentration both before and after the filtration and then to determine the performance. Obtained results showed that the fibers diameter and pore size of synthesized nanofibers provide uniformity with the fiber diameter ranging from 20 to 70 nm. Our results revealed that the maximum permeability of nano-fibrous pads was related to 100 nm particles that were selected as MPPS in this medium. Considering the test particles size distribution it was found that with increasing the velocity the permeability and the pressure drops were increased and the quality factor was decreased. this study shows that electrospinning is a promising technology for the synthesis of high performance nanoparticle filters.

The aim of this study was to investigate the trend of mortality of children under five years old in Kurdistan Province during 2007 to 2011.

The data of this descriptive-analytical study on deaths and births was collected from provincial deaths registry system and Civil Registration System during 2007 to 2011. The main indicators including under-five mortality, infant mortality, and neonatal mortality rate during the given period were studied. The relationship between variables was calculated using chi-square test.

The neonatal mortality rate changed from 13.5 per thousand live births in 2007 to 12.2 per thousand live births in 2011. During the same period of time, the infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate declined from 17.1 and 20.2 to 14.9 and 17.4 per thousand live births, respectively. A significant relationship was found between gender and infant mortality. Among the major causes of mortality, prenatal diseases, especially infant diseases, were the most common cause of death in the neonatal period.

According to the results of this study, although there was a reduction in the under-five mortality rate during these years, the observed decline, especially the decline in infant mortality rate, was very slow. There are still some preventable causes of death in children which require more attention by the health system and researchers.

The nested case-control study has become popular as an efficient alternative to the full-cohort design. This study compares the results of a nested case-control analysis approach with the full cohort analysis. A cohort of 276 subjects (new cases from a TB registry) was used for this study. Cox Regression model was used for the full cohort analysis. In order to do the nested case-control analysis, for each death, three random controls were selected from those who did not suffer from the outcome at the time of the outcome took place. Case control data was analyzed by the conditional logistic regression model. Results from both cohort and nested case-control analyses show that treatment group is the only variable that affects on the outcome. Gender, place of residence, and age has no effect on the outcome. For binary exposure variables with trivial effects (e.g. Gender and place of residence), the relative efficiency of nested case-control study design is approximately 75%. Results of this study show that nested case-control study is not only an easy and cost-effective method for data analysis but also is as robust as cohort analysis in rate ratio and its variance estimation.

Tobacco smoking is known to cause a huge burden of disease throughout the world: smoking is responsible for 4 million deaths per year. This study is performed in order to fill the existing gaps in information regarding current trends for lifestyle and tobacco-related disease in Iran. This was a cross-sectional study performed with the help of a questionnaire and using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. The final sample size, after the screening of the data, was 84706 out of 89457 records. From a total of 84706 people in this study, 49.7% were men, 52% were uneducated and 64.8% cane from urban areas; 79.9% did not smoke, 15.3% smoked actively, 2.1% were non-active smokers and 2.7% were ex-smokers. The prevalence of smoking was higher in people aged 35 to 64 years (P<0.001). Quitting rates increased with age, especially in women (P<0.001). Smoking was more prevalent in men (P<0.001) and in rural areas (P<0.001). The average number of cigarettes smoked per day was 14.69. Smoking prevalence was lower among adults with higher levels of education compared to those with lower education levels (P<0.001). This nationwide survey provides a baseline for future longitudinal studies of smoking in Iran. There is a need for effective smoking prevention and cessation programs with a focus on the young population.