مجله اپیدمیولوژی ایران
سال هفدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 64، زمستان 1400)

Timely dection of influenza outbreaks is very important for a better reponse to outbreaks. The aim of this study was to assess the moving epidemic method for determinating influenza outbreak threshold levels in Iran.

The moving epidemic method was applied to the WHO Flunet website data from January 2010 to December 2017 with the aim of determining outbreak alert thresholds. Therefore, the performance of the moving epidemic method in identifying the onset of the outbreak over eight periods was reported using sensitivity and specificity indices.

A total of 69169 influenza-like illnesses were recorded in the Fluent website during the study period. The smallest number of influenza-like illnesses for the epidemic was 187 cases in the third period (2011-2012) and the maximum number was 1086 cases in the seventh period (2016-2015). The earliest epidemic occurred during the third and eighth periods of the 48th week, approximately in mid-February. The minimum duration of the epidemic was 8 weeks and the maximum was 13 weeks. The overall sensitivity and specificity of the moving epidemic method were 55% and 96%, respectively.

The moving epidemic method could be used as a complementary method to detection of influenza outbreks. It is recommended to apply the moving epidemic method on influenza and similar communicable diseses.

Identifying the epidemiological features of reported measles outbreaks including the size, period, and generation of the outbreaks plays a significant role in preventing new outbreaks and estimating effective reproduction number (R) as an indication of measles elimination. This study was conducted to describe the reported measles outbreaks in the world in 2018.

The PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciences databases were searched using related keywords to retrieve articles that reported 2018 measles outbreaks. From the full-texts of the articles that met the inclusion criteria, the data including gender, season, age group, country, genotype, and vaccination status as well as shape, size, period of outbreaks and number of generations of each outbreak were extracted and reported using the relevant epidemiological curves.

The search results led to the retrieval of 2806 articles. After screening, 16 studies were used for final analysis. Most outbreaks were reported in the winter (56.25%) with genotypes B3 and D8. The sex female (38.64%, 308 cases) was mostly in Asia and Europe. On average, the minimum and maximum number of outbreaks size was 1 and 23, which spread to 3-4 generations. In terms of death, only one case of death was reported in Ethiopia.

The results of this study are useful for identifying measles outbreaks in other countries according to the at-risk groups. However, publication bias and non-reporting of all outbreaks should be considered as limitations in the generalization of the results.

Considering the high contribution of unintentional accidents to mortality, particularly in males in Iran, and their changes over the last decade, a study was conducted to review the share of deaths due to unintentional accidents in sex difference in life expectancy at birth in the country over the last decades.

The mortality data for the years 2006 to 2015 were obtained from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Then, the child mortality was corrected using the intercensal generational method and adult mortality was corrected for underreporting based on the Bennett-Horiuchi method. The contribution of mortality changes due to unintentional accidents to increase in females’ life expectancy was calculated using the ARIAGA decomposition method.

The sex differential in life expectancy was about 3.5 years in 2006 in Iran, which decreased to 2.9 years in 2011 and increased to 3 years in in 2015. The unintentional accidents in all three periods played a dominant role in sex differential mortality, but its contribution over time was significantly reduced, with a contribution of 60% to around 42% between 2006 and 2015.

Due to the slowdown in the increase in life expectancy at birth in Iran in recent decades, attention to differential mortality, including sex difference in mortality and identification of potentials to increase life expectancy according to different groups, can increase life expectancy.

In most parts of the world, pelvic girdle and lower back pain are one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders, but its prevalence has been reported differently in studies around the world. were performed to investigate the-analysis Therefore, the present meta prevalence of pelvic girdle and lower back pain in pregnant women.

all articles published from 2005 to May 2020 using the keywords Pelvic Girdle Pain, Low back pain, Cross-Sectional, Prevalence, Epidemiology, Survey in Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection,Science Direct and SID collected and reviewed. Munn et al. tools were used to evaluate the quality of studies and methodology.

26 studies with a sample size of 13430 showed that, the overall prevalence of pelvic girdle and low back pain in pregnant women is 50% (95% CI: 43-58%, I2: 98.9%) and in primigravida women 44% (95% CI: 35-54%, I2: 97.9). Also, the prevalence of pelvic girdle and low back pain was using the questionnaire 57% (95% CI: 47-68, I2: 99.04%), using a combination of methods 53% (95% confidence interval: 37-70, I2: 96.12%), using a VAS Scale 38%(95% confidence interval: 23-52, I2: 99.08%).

The results of the present study indicate a 50% prevalence of pelvic girdle and low back pain in pregnant women. Due to the high prevalence and effects of pain on the quality of life of pregnant women, it seems necessary to plan, policy and design effective interventions in this field by the treatment team.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status and non-communicable diseases (NCD) risk factors in one of the northern counties of Iran.

A descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in Langrud County in 2019. In this study, 906 rural and urban households were surveyed using mixed sampling. The data collection tool was the standard questionnaire of "NCD disease care system". Households’ exposure to NCD behavioral risk factors (including unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle and smoking) in different socio-economic groups was examined and compared with logistic regression models using the STATA software.

The probability of smoking in illiterate subjects and those with unfinished high school education and high school diploma was 5.1, 7.5 and 4.2 times higher than those with university education (OR = 5.1,7.5,4.2; P <0.05). The probability of unhealthy diets in the first and second quartiles of income (very low and low income) was 3.4 and 2.6 times higher compared to the people in the fourth quartile of income (high income) (P <0.05; OR = 3.4, 2.6).

The micro-level socioeconomic inequalities (within the county) have a significant relationship with households’ exposure to NCD risk factors. Reducing socio-economic inequalities at the micro level should be considered as an appropriate tool to reduce health inequality at the macro level.

Drug use not only affects a person's physical and mental health, but also affects the health of others in the community. Various variables, including demographic and social factors, affect drug use. The present study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of drug use and related factors in the participants of Shahedieh Cohort Study.

A descriptive study was performed using the first phase of Shahedieh cohort study on 10194 adult residents of Shahdieh, Zarch, and Ashkezar in 2015-2016. The aim of the cohort study was to assess the prevalence of non-communicable diseases and their risk factors in adults aged 35-70 years. Data were analyzed with the SPSS 20 using chi-square and logistic regression.

The prevalence of illicit drug use in the present study was 15.5% with a mean age of onset of 31.5 ± 9.2 years. The most common drug was opium (98.2%). The most common method of drug use was inhalation (98.1%). The logistic regression showed that male gender (P< 0.001), age 40 to 49 years (P<0.001), low education (below high school diploma) (P<0.001), positive history of smoking (P<0.001) and alcohol consumption (P<0.001) were the most important factors associated with drug use. In addition, a positive history of ischemic heart disease (P=0.007) and psychiatric disorders (P=0.02) were the diseases related to drug use.

The prevalence of drug use was high in the study population. There is an urgent need for intervention and preventive measures to solve this complex social problem.

Breast cancer has the highest incidence in the Iranian women.

A cross-sectional study was conducted. All female with breast cancer during 2008-2015 were enrolled. Breast cancer registration is based on the pathology method in Iran. The information about female with breast cancer was collected from their files in the cancer registry department of Hamadan Health Center. The samples were divided into four groups according to age (<50 and> 50) and location (city, village). GeoBUGS was used to generate a map of high-risk areas in Hamedan Province based on the adjusted relative risk estimate (RR*) in OpenBUGS v 3.2.3 software.

This study included 1316 females with breast cancer. The mean age of the patients was 50.38±12.98 years. The results of the study showed that high-risk areas of breast cancer for were Assadabad urban females aged over 50 years (RR*(i)=1.32, CI= 0.99,1.79) and Tuyserkan (RR*(i)=1.09, CI= 1.08,1.38) and Razan (RR*(i)=1.09, CI= 0.85,1.40) for females below 50 years. In addition, Razan for rural females over 50 years old (RR*(i)=1.18, CI=0.82,1.73) and Malayer for females below 50 years old (RR*(i)=1.08, CI= 0.81,1.45) were high risk areas for breast cancer in Hamadan Province.

The distribution of breast cancer is different at different ages and in the cities of Hamadan Province. Asadabad, Tuyserkan, Razan and Malayer were high risk areas for breast cancer in Hamadan Province.

Epidemiological studies have indicated the prevalence of a wide spectrum of diffused pigment lesions throughout the world and Iran. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency distribution of oral diffused pigment lesions in patients presenting to Oral Diseases Department of Isfahan Dental School.

A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 303 patients presenting to Oral Diseases Department of Isfahan Dental School during the first three-month period of 2019. The demographic data, location of lesions, and type of lesions were recorded in a checklist and analyzed with the SPSS version 22 using Chi square, Mann Whitney test, Fisher's exact test, and spearman correlation coefficient. The level of significance was set at 5%.

In this study, 303 patients were examined of whom 93 (30.69%) were diagnosed with diffused pigment lesions. As for the pigmentation severity, the patients were grouped into low, moderate, and high with 54 persons (58%), 13 persons (14%) and 26 persons (28%) in each group, respectively. The most frequent site was labial gingiva and the most common type was the physiologic type. The results showed that gender had no effect on the frequency distribution (P=0.09) but gender and age had significant effects on the severity of pigmentation (P=0.047, r=0.459 and P<0.001 respectively). Skin color had a significant effect on the type of pigmentation
(P < 0.001).

The frequency of oral diffuse pigmentation in patients presenting to the Isfahan dental school was noticeable.