Assessing the Iran Health System in Making Progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Comparative Panel Data Analysis

Sustainable development goals' (SDGs) analysis can be caused a better understanding of factors contributing to access to health services and help shape policies to attain health goals. This review aimed to measure and compare the SDGs between Iran and selected categories.

This study was a comparative cross-sectional study. We identified indicators of health status based on the SDGs report 2019. The status of SDGs indicators was compared in Iran to four categories, including selected countries with similar social, economic, and health status, six regions of the WHO, the average of each income level group. SPSS 20 and Excel 2019 software were used for descriptive data analysis.

The average life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were 75.7 years and 65.4 respectively in Iran. Iran's mortality rate in indicators named road traffic (32.1 per 100000 population), suicide (4.1 per 100000 population), and unintentional poisoning (1.2 per 100000 population) were higher than most of the categories. Iran's status in morbidity indicators had an approximately lower rate than all categories. Iran had full coverage in three immunization indicators like DTP3 immunization, MCV2 immunization, and PCV3 immunization, which was higher than all categories. Coverage of UHC in Iran (65%) was near to the global average (64%) and higher than the eastern Mediterranean Region (53%). Moreover, the prevalence of tobacco smoking (10.95%) and alcohol consumption (1%) were lower than global (6.4%) and the WHO regions (1.8%) average.

Health status measurement is a trend that requires the collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of data by a set of indicators. There are several weaknesses in reported data in the SDGs for some indicators, the data collection process should be noticed seriously by policymakers.