Journal of Health Scope
Volume:12 Issue: 1, Feb 2023

Air pollution is a serious concern for environmental and human health, especially due to increasing the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of air pollution on plant species resistance in urban areas.

This narrative review was conducted by searching the databases of Web of Science, Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Springer. Sixty-five articles were screened by reading their abstracts and full texts. In the end, 12 relevant papers published from 1993 to 2021 were finally selected.

The literature review showed that the green spaces created by municipalities in different areas of the city included a set of trees and shrubs compatible by the climate, grass, soil, and water of the region, leading to a significant improvement in air quality. Based on the results, urban green space has the ability to reduce the amount of artificially produced pollutants, and the use of natural potential of trees can improve the quality of the environment depending on various factors such as the climatic condition of the region and the density and amount of vegetation cover.

The most effective ways to reduce health and economic costs include reducing the emission of pollutants from cars and industries, extending urban green space, educating citizens, and organizational planning and cooperation. The findings of this study may have important implications for selecting plant species for vegetation traffic barriers.

Good nutrition is imperative to achieve a better health status. The rate of obesity and related comorbidities is increasing all over the world. The main reasons behind this worse situation are the overconsumption of food groups or exceeding the recommended portion sizes. University life is a period when students are independent in making their food choices. The chances of adopting unhealthy eating behaviors are increased during this tenure. Nutritional knowledge is an important tool in assessing the nutritional status of an individual, group, and community.

The main objective of the current study was to assess the nutritional knowledge of university-going students.

The pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect the data from the students of the University of Lahore, Pakistan. A total of 300 students participated in this study (150 from the Nutrition Department and 150 from the non-nutrition departments). Demographic data, anthropometric measurements, and total nutritional knowledge (TNK) scores were measured during the 4-month study duration. Additionally, gender-and department-based comparisons of various parameters were performed. The mean TNK of the Nutrition Department students was higher (34.89 ± 0.95/58) than non-nutrition departments (24.05 ± 1.00/58) (P = 0.01). Additionally, the mean TNK of female students was higher (28.53 ± 1.28/58) than male students (27.05 ± 1.27/58) (P = 0.03). Moreover, 61% and 63% of nutrition students were familiar with the relationship between high intake of salt and fats with chronic diseases, respectively.

A statistically significant relationship was not observed between gender (P = 0.78) and departments (P = 0.10) with body mass index (BMI). This finding shows that nutritional knowledge alone is not a predictor of the nutritional status (BMI) of an individual. Students, even from the Nutrition Department, failed to transform their knowledge about nutrition into healthy food choices and eating practices.

It is necessary to initiate nutrition education programs emphasizing making healthy food choices. Moreover, nutritional knowledge related to dietary guidelines should be incorporated into daily life to remove the disease burden associated with obesity.

Human brain performance and arousal are still challenging and critical, especially in environments such as power plants. Since different emotions are common in daily work life and have inevitable effects on cognitive performance, it is important to evaluate whether emotional interventions can alter brain arousal. Poor cognitive performance in control room operators (CROs) can lead to mental fatigue and affect their cognitive emotion regulation. To address this issue, flicker fusion frequency (FFF) was employed as a simple and reproducible surrogate index for mental fatigue.

This study aimed to investigate whether emotionally loaded visual stimuli can alter brain arousal (brain fatigue) or is associated with cognitive emotion regulation (CER) ability.

Flicker fusion frequency was assessed by RT-961, and the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was adopted as the picture database of stimuli. Additionally, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) was used to determine the participants’ cognitive emotion CER ability. Twenty volunteer CROs from Fars Combined Cycle Power Plant participated in this study. After completing the CERQ, they were assessed at 2 different time points (ie, before and after presenting emotional stimuli). Flicker fusion frequency was assessed 20 times at each round, and the average frequency was recorded. Emotionally loaded images were considered as stimuli. The stimuli sets were classified based on their arousal levels and valences, yet they were presented in random order. Subjects were exposed to each image for 5 seconds (30 minutes in total).

The participants’ mean age was 39.55 ± 7.02 years. The first and second FFFs were 42.15 ± 3.90 and 41.96 ± 3.98 in the appropriate group and 42.82 ± 3.59 and 42.26 ± 4.07 in the inappropriate group. Based on the statistical tests, there were no significant relationships between the measurements (P > 0.05).

Control room operators may positively maintain their brain arousal during specific emotional stimuli when the intervention lasts less than 30 minutes. Considering the prolonged working hours in such industries (roughly over 8 hours a day) and the importance of cognitive aptitude in preventing work-related errors, we propose this line of research to gain momentum.

In recent decades, women’s participation in the labor market has increased dramatically. However, this has confronted working women with work-family conflicts.

This systematic review aimed to find the factors related to work-family conflicts befallen women working.

All scientific articles published on the subject from June 2000 until June 2021 were searched in five databases (Science Direct, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar) using the Keywords of factor, female, working, work-life balance, life-work imbalance.

We found 3967 articles in the databases mentioned. After removing duplicate items, the titles and abstracts of 2573 articles were screened, 34 full-texts of which were reviewed, leading to the final selection of 31 articles (13 qualitative studies and 17 quantitative studies). Then we searched for the documents that cited any of the initially included studies, as well as the references of the primarily included studies; however, no additional articles were found in this step. We categorized the factors related to work-life conflicts into four categories and 22 sub-categories. The first category was individual factors (e.g., individual capacities and skills); the second category was interpersonal factors (e.g., spousal support and lack of family support); the third category was organizational factors (e.g., organizational policies and working hours), and the fourth category was cultural factors (e.g., patriarchal hegemony in society and family-friendly culture).

First, individual skills are needed to be paid more attention to, such as planning, which may be simply modifiable and has the potential to inform therapeutic interventions and preventative strategies. Second, foremen and directors should be informed about the importance of work-life conflicts experienced by women and their decisive role in creating a work-life balance to help improve their working conditions.

Light is a physical factor that can influence the mood and vision of people during work and study. According to the importance of these physical factors, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of the source and color temperature on the mood and vision (acuity and color recognition) of students of TUMS and USWR medical universities.

The present study is an applied study, and the research method is quasi-experimental. Twenty subjects were determined by first-type error (0.05) and test power (0.08). The mood was measured using the profile of mood states (POMS), visual acuity in different lighting conditions based on Snellen and FrACT methods, and color recognition by Ishihara’s test. Data were analyzed by SPSS 22, one-way ANOVA, and Greenhouse-Geisser.

The results of investigating six subscales of the POMS scale in sunlight, LED, and fluorescent with color temperatures of 4000 K and 3000 K indicated improvement in mood states (P < 0.001). Color recognition under different lighting conditions showed no significant difference (P < 0.05). However, visual acuity with the FrACT method under sunlight showed a significant difference in other lighting conditions (P < 0.001).

Light sources can influence mood and vision states (acuity and color recognition) under different lighting conditions. Therefore, using sunlight in educational environments can improve the mood and state of students.

Q fever is a generally neglected infection caused by Coxiella burnetii. Slaughterhouse workers exposed to livestock are among occupationally at-risk people.

This study was conducted to investigate the seroprevalence of anti-Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) IgG antibody among industrial slaughterhouse workers and factors affecting the risk of infection.

In this cross-sectional study serum samples were taken from 91 individuals working at the central industrial abattoir in Mashhad, Iran using a convenient sampling method. Sera were kept at -80°C until assayed for specific anti-Coxiella burnetii IgG antibodies (phase 1) using the commercial ELISA kit. The participants filled out a checklist addressing potential risk factors of acquiring the infection. SPSS 11.5 was used for data analysis considering a significance level of P < 0.05.

The participants’ mean age was 38.7 ± 8 years. Fifty-six percent of the studied individuals (51 out of 91) were found positive for anti-Coxiella burnetii antibodies. The most prevalent cases were sheep (29, 57%) and cow (18, 35%) butchers. The odds of Q fever infection increased among those with a history of accidental hand cuts of more than five times during the previous years (OR = 2.56, CI95% = 1.02 - 6.33, P-value = 0.04) and those dealing with sheep as the primary livestock (OR = 2.9, CI95% = 1.09 - 7.66, P = 0.02).

The high seropositivity rate of anti-Coxiella burnetii IgG reflects high exposure rate of workers to this potentially serious pathogen in slaughtherhouses; therefore, careful education, follow-up, and revision of decontamination policies and improved occupational care and environmental hygiene should be strictly implemented in slaughterhouses to reduce the risk.

Taxes on unhealthy goods, in addition to reducing the consumption of these goods, preventing related diseases, and promoting public health, can provide significant financial resources for the health sector.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems and solutions of taxation to control the consumption of unhealthy goods to improve public health.

This qualitative study was conducted in 2021. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions were held to collect information. Sampling was performed by purposive and snowball methods with 31 managers and key experts. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method. MAXQDA software (version 12) was used for classification and coding.

This study labeled 2 main themes and 10 subthemes. The main themes included problems of controlling unhealthy goods and solutions to controlling unhealthy goods. Poor decision-making, planning, and execution, production-related problems, smuggling and poor supervision, increased consumption of harmful goods, conflicts of interest, and advertisements of unhealthy goods are the most important of these problems. Imposing taxes, duties, and price hikes, providing alternatives, paying attention to all determinants of supply and demand, and taxation on advertising are also solutions to control unhealthy products.

The health level of individuals should be improved by imposing taxes on unhealthy goods, determining accurate tax rates, and simultaneously using measures, such as providing alternatives to unhealthy goods and controlling advertisements. Paying serious attention to the list of harmful goods, coordination and cooperation of related organizations in formulating and implementing tax policies, and providing suitable alternatives to harmful products are the practical suggestions of this study.

Effective blood transfusion is a life-saving practice in obstetrics and gynecology emergencies that can prevent blood product wastage in hospitals.

This study was performed to evaluate the appropriateness of the use of blood products in pregnant women in a tertiary care hospital in Zahedan, southeast Iran.

This cross-sectional study was carried out from September 2019 to March 2020 to assess the patterns of blood utilization in a tertiary care hospital in Zahedan, Iran. Blood bank registries and the data of 1,500 pregnant women were used for data analysis, using blood transfusion indices, including cross-matched to transfusion (C/T) ratio, transfusion probability (T), and transfusion index (TI).

Out of 1,064 units of requested blood products, 581 (54.6%) were cross-matched, and 774 (72.7%) were transfused to patients. The blood transfusion indices of C/T, T%, and TI were 2.11, 48.48%, and 0.76, respectively. The transfusion rate was 6.2%, and the commonest associated obstetrics complication requiring transfusion was uterine atony (32.2%), followed by anemia (17.2%). There was a statistically significant relationship between the type of delivery, uterine and placental problems, coagulation disorders during pregnancy, number of deliveries, and residence place, and the probability of blood transfusion (P > 0.05).

The overall blood utilization indices were encouraging; however, the proportion of blood wastage was relatively high. Regular auditing is needed to optimize the use of blood and blood products in obstetrics and gynecology departments.

Job burnout is a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors

This study aimed to evaluate job burnout and identify its effective predictors among health sector employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This cross-sectional study encompassed 1898 employees of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in the summer of 2020. Logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with job burnout. The required data were collected electronically using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and analyzed with SPSS software version 26 and R4.0.2 software.

Of 1898 participants, 74.3% were female. Composite job burnout (CJB), emotional exhaustion (EE), and depersonalization (DP) were the most common at low levels, whereas reduced personal accomplishment (RPA) was the most frequent at moderate levels. In this regard, factors such as female gender, age groups of 40 - 49 and ≥ 50 years, and exposure to COVID-19 were the main independent risk factors for job burnout.

Reduced personal accomplishment was moderate despite relatively low levels of job burnout, EE, and DP. Accordingly, effective interventions are suggested to improve different aspects of the work-life with an emphasis on critical situations. Moreover, regarding the significant relationship between job burnout with gender, age, and exposure to COVID-19, it is recommended to increase the employees’ knowledge about job burnout.