Iranian Journal of Public Health
Volume:52 Issue: 9, Sep 2023

 Nintedanib is a potent intracellular inhibitor of tyrosine kinases and modulates the pathways involved in the development of fibrosis. We assessed nintedanib efficacy and safety in interstitial lung disease (ILD) patients.

 We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register to identify available articles (up to April 2022). We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining nintedanib efficacy and safety in patients with ILD with or without systemic sclerosis (SSc).

 Meta-analysis of five RCTs including 2,470 patients with ILD (1,343 nintedanib group and 1,127 controls) revealed that the annual rate of change in forced vital capacity (FVC) was significantly lower in the ILD group than in the control group (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.336; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.256–0.416, P<0.001). Stratification by disease type showed a low annual rate of change in FVC in patients with and without SSc (SMD = 0.389, 95% CI=0.294–0.478, P<0.001; SMD=0.177, 95% CI=0.013–0.340, P<0.00). The incidence of serious adverse events did not differ between the nintedanib and placebo groups; however, adverse events (AEs) and withdrawals due to AEs were significantly higher in the nintedanib group than in the placebo group (SMD =2.365, 95% CI=1.673-3.343, P<0.001; SMD =1.740, 95% CI= 1.385-2.185, P<0.001).

 Nintedanib is effective for ILD with or without SSc. However, it increased the incidence of AEs and withdrawals due to AEs.

Military health surveillance system, as the first responder in natural disasters, plays an important role in public health. This study aimed to identify those components of the health surveillance system, which influence military health services in natural disasters.

Five databases of Medline, SCOPUS, Web of Science, ProQuest, Cochrane Library, and search engines of Scholar Google, scienceopen.com, openGery.eu, and WHO.int were reviewed from Jan 1990 to Jan 2022. Due to the heterogeneity of the included studies, various JBI quality assessment tools were applied and the extracted data were analyzed by meta-synthesis method.

Out of 6538 retrieved studies, after the duplicates and irrelevant studies identified in screening stage were removed, 174 studies extracted from the electronic search of databases and 16 studies retrieved from the manual search of other sources were reviewed based on the study inclusion criteria. Finally, 24 studies with inclusion criteria were selected for data extraction. Ten criteria of monitoring, detecting, data collection and reporting, tracking, type of surveillance system, operational readiness, coordination and interaction, feasibility, flexibility, and acceptability were identified as effective components in the surveillance system of military health services. The identified components were classified into two main categories of structural and opera-tional components.

The structural components of the military health surveillance system describe the important in-frastructural features of the health surveillance system to preparing for natural disasters; and the operational components explains the effective functional features of military health surveillance system in response of natural disasters. The results of this study help policymakers in military health services implement a more ef-fective health surveillance system in natural disasters.

Contextual risk factors such as social capital have a vital role in affecting behavioral and biologi-cal risk factors of NCDs. We aimed to systematically identify the relationship between different aspects of so-cial capital (SC) with metabolic, and behavioral risk factors of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

This is a systematic review. The period of study was 2000-2021. We searched the English interna-tional databases, i.e. PubMed/Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science. Studies that reported NCDs' metabolic and behavioral risk factors as independent variables, were excluded. We also included studies if they analyzed the association between SC and metabolic and behavioral risk factors of NCDs.

After the primary and quality appraisal process, 97 studies were entered in the final phase of the anal-ysis. Five out of 18 studies reported an inverse association between SC and the level of alcohol drinking. Twen-ty-seven out of 32 studies reported a significant inverse association between SC and smoking and tobacco use, while only one study reported a significant positive association. Nine studies reported a significant inverse asso-ciation between SC and high blood pressure. Three studies showed a significant inverse association between SC and diabetes. Seventeen studies indicated a significant positive association between SC and physical activity. Thirteen out of 17 studies reported a significant inverse association between SC, body mass index (BMI) and overweight.

High SC, people's participation and interaction are vital in tackling NCDs. Evidence shows posi-tive effects of SC on prevention, control and improvement of NCDs' metabolic and behavioral risk factors.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of leading cause of death and disability in Iran that has serious consequences on people’s health. Understanding of epidemiology of TBI can be helpful for policy making in health care management. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the epidemiology of TBI in Iran.

PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Google scholar, and internal databases including, SID, Magiran, and IranMedex were searched to identify the relevant published studies up to Feb 2022. Moreover, the references list of key studies was scanned to find more records. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) tool was used to assess the quality of included studies. The Excel and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software were to analyze the data.

Overall, 23,446 patients from 15 studies were included in the study. The overall mean age of the patients was 31.36 ± 0.13 yr (95%CI: 31.10 to 31.61). The majority of the patients were male (74.37%), with a male to female ratio of 3:1. The incidence rate of TBI was 15.3 to 144 per 100,000 population. The mortality rate of TBI was esti-mated to be 10.4% (95%CI: 5% to 19%). The most common causes of injury were road traffic accidents (RTAs) (60%; 95%CI: 49% to 70%), and falling (20%; 95%CI: 16% to 26%), respectively. The most frequent type of head injury was subdural hematoma.

Our findings highlight that appropriate control and prevention strategies should be focused on male, road traffic accidents, and the group under 40 yr.

Despite the importance of physical activity in heart failure treatment, physical activity adherence in heart failure patients is low. The purpose of this umbrella review was to obtain the best strategies for enhancing physical activity adherence among HF patients.

Databases were investigated from 2010 to Jan 2022. The full text of the papers was investigated in terms of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Eventually, out of 74 relevant papers, 7-review study with 20977 patients were eligible and included in the study.

Five key effective approaches were identified in two subsets for enhancing physical activity adherence as follows: 1) exercise-based approaches including 1.1) Exergames, whereby the extent of adherence to exergames was between 84 and 98%. 1.2) Tele-rehabilitation with 70%-100% adherence the intervention groups 1.3) Tai chi and Qigong practices (TQPs), whereby the exercise adherence in TQP groups was 67-100%, 2. Theoretical-behavioral approaches 2.1) approaches based on behavioral and psychological theories, which were a combination of an exercise program alongside a behavior modification intervention, 2.2) Self-efficacy.

Approaches that are based on exercise alongside behavioral and theoretical interventions could enhance physical activity adherence among HF patients. It is suggested to evaluate mix methods of exercise-based approaches and theoretical-behavioral approaches mentioned in this study in future clinical trial studies. Use of capacity of TR programs improve to physical activity adherence should receive more attention.

Achieving financial goals is one of the health systems goals, especially for those in low- and middle-income countries. Since financing equity, is an objective of Health Transformation Plan (HTP) implementation in Iran, this study examined this plan toward improving equity in healthcare Financing, using four payment indices: Out-of-Pocket Payment (OOP), Catastrophic Health Expenditure (CHE), Fair financial Contribution Index (FFCI) and Impoverishing Health Expenditure (IHE).

Articles published in English on equity in financing related to HTP were searched and retrieved in the Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Embase databases between Jan 2014 and Dec 2020, following PRISMA guide-lines. Overall, 1319 papers were retrieved initially, and 31 were selected for analysis.

After implementation of HTP, OOP index has decreased between patients and households. No consistent trend was evident for CHE. HTP reforms have a limited effect on the FFCI. The one study on IHE has shown an upward trend for this index. In general, in the early years of HTP, there was a higher downward trend in equity in financing indicators than in subsequent years.

HTP has made significant accomplishments in equity, such as the financial protection of patients in healthcare centers, but fail to achieve this plan goals, significantly reduced its value. Therefore, it is necessary for managers and health policy makers around the world, with scientific and principled solutions, to prevent loss of their reform plans positive achievements.

Home accident is among the most common type of trauma, in the second place after traffic acci-dent. We aimed to determine the prevalence and factors affecting the occurrence of home accidents in Iran.

PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and national Persian databases including SID, MagIran, and Medi-cal Articles Bank were searched for articles published until September 12, 2021. The pooled prevalence and fac-tors affecting the occurrence of home accidents were calculated.

Twenty articles were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of home accident was 44% (95%CI: 32% to 56%). The pooled prevalence of foreign object/fall, stab or cut, suffocation, burn, poisoning and were 15% (95%CI: 10% to 20%), 24% (95%CI: 10% to 38%), 1% (95%CI:0.7% to 1.3%), 31% (95%CI:19% to 42.2%), and 6.8% (95%CI:4.2% to 429.4%), respectively.

The prevalence of home accidents in Iran is moderate but higher than in other countries. The find-ings of this review highlight the need for more attention to home accident in children and elderly in the South and Southeast regions of Iran.

We aimed to review the effectiveness of health promotion interventions in the use of helmet and to identify the types of effective health promotion strategies among the examined studies.

A systematic search was performed on the PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, and Embase databases up to 1 Aug 2022 to find the studies evaluated the effectiveness of health promotion interventions for helmet use among target population. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, interventions with pre- post-test design were included. The dependent variable of the study is the percentage of participants who responded positively toward helmet use in the baseline and after the interventions. Random-effects models were used to pool study results.

Overall, 1,675 articles were found in the initial search and entered into the Endnote software. Of these, 917 duplicate articles were removed, leaving 758 articles were screened based on title and abstract. Final-ly, 12 eligible articles were included in the review and five with pre and post-test design were included in the meta-analysis. The overall random-effects pooled estimation of persons wearing helmets before and after in-terventions was 70% (95%CI 21 –119; P<0.001), without a heterogeneity (I2 =0%; P=0.94), which means that the average percentage of changing to helmet use is 70%. Community-based education program was the most commonly applied for interventional studies. The next most commonly used approaches were campaign de-signing.

Wearing helmet approximately increased 70% among participant. Health promotion strategies may target helmet-wearing behavior to reduce head injuries in motorcyclist road traffic accidents.

One of the effective indicators used to determine the efficiency and optimal use of hospital re-sources is the length of stay (LOS). Then, we aimed to determine LOS and its related factors in Iran.

A systematic literature review was conducted according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines using the online databases; Medline, EMBASE, Scopus, PubMed, SID, MagIran, and Medlib from 1995 to 2022 using a combination of medical subject. STATA ver-sion 11 used for data analysis.

Overall, 75 (cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control) reports were identified. The average length of stay in Iranian hospitals was 6.7 (95% CI: 5.32 -7.74) d. There was a significant relationship between the length of stay in the hospital and different wards of hospital (P=0.001). The average of men’ LOS was longer than women were [6.9 (95% CI: 5.32 -7.74) vs. 3.9 (95% CI: 1.67-9.41)]. Moreover, the average LOS before and after the Health Transformation Plan (HTP) in Iran has changed, so that it has increased from 5.8 (95% CI: 4.39 -7.86) to 7.1 (95% CI: 5.59 -9.25) d after HTP (P=0.30).

The average length of stay of patients in Iranian hospitals is more than the expected index of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and is in the unfavorable range (> four days). Moreover, considering the direct effect of the type of departments on LOS; therefore, hospital managers should pay more attention to hospital processes using new process-oriented and customer-oriented management approaches.

Budgeting is the process resource allocation to produce the best output according to the revenue levels involved. Among the constraints that healthcare organizations, including hospitals, both in the public and private sectors, grapple with is budgetary constraints. Therefore, cost control and resource management should be considered in healthcare organizations under such circumstances.

We aimed to identify methods of budgeting in healthcare systems and organizations as a systematic review. To extract and analyze the data, a form was designed by the researcher to define budgeting methods proposed in the literature and to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and dimensions. The search was conduct-ed in Google Scholar, Web of science, Pub med and Scopus databases covering the period 1990-2022.

Overall, 33 articles were included in the study for extraction and final analysis. The study results were reported in four main themes: healthcare system budgeting, capital budgeting, global budgeting, and perfor-mance-based budgeting.

Each budgeting approach has its own pros and cons and requires meeting certain requirements. These approaches are selected and implemented depending on each country's infrastructure and conditions as well as its organizations. These infrastructures need to be thoroughly examined before implementing any budg-eting method, and then a budgeting method should be selected accordingly.

N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation modification is involved in tumorigenesis and progres-sion and can affect various stages of RNA processing. We aimed to determine m6A methylation modifications on a transcriptome-wide scale in thyroid cancer.

RNA samples from cancerous tissues and adjacent tissues extracted from patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) from Hangzhou First People’s Hospital, Zhejiang, China from January 2019 to Janu-ary 2020 were used for m6A-sequencing. The biological function of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was analyzed via Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis. Corre-lation analysis between the results of transcriptome sequencing and m6A-sequencing was also performed. The key m6A immune-related genes were downloaded from Immport. LASSO regression was performed on the resulting genes to establish a prognostic risk model, which was verified by multivariate Cox proportional haz-ards regression analyses, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis.

An increase in m6A content in the total RNA of PTC was observed. A total of 123 genes with signifi-cant differential expression and differential methylation sites in thyroid cancer were selected, related to protein digestion and absorption, linoleic acid metabolism, legionellosis and alpha-linolenic acid metabolism. Seven genes (GDNF, EBI3, CCL2, BMP5, TGFB2, CGB3 and RLN2) were found to be predictive of PTC.

We analyzed the expression, enrichment pathways and functions of m6A methylation-related genes in the whole transcriptome of thyroid cancer and provided a prognostic risk model for thyroid cancer patients.

The effects of health-literacy and health-perception on prenatal distress levels of pregnant wom-en were not investigated. We aimed to examine the relationship between pregnant women’s prenatal distress levels with their health-literacy and health-perception and affecting factors.

This descriptive and correlational study was conducted with 223 pregnant women in Ankara, Tur-key in 2021. Data were collected with a personal information form, Health Literacy Scale (HLS), Health Per-ception Scale (HPS), and Prenatal Distress Scale (PDS).

Participants’ mean score on the PDS was 11.39±6.17. Participants who had a high level of education (P=0.040), working (P=0.026), no history of miscarriage/abortion (P=0.040), and a bad relationship with their spouses (P<0.001) had significantly higher mean scores on the PDS. There was a significant negative correla-tion between total PDS and HLS scores (P<0.001) and a positive correlation between total PDS and HPS scores (P<0.001). Total HLS and HPS scores, spousal relationship status, education level, and employment had an effect on the mean PDS score and that the explanatory power of the model was found 21.5% (R2=0.215).

Pregnant women had a moderate level of prenatal distress. While the prenatal distress levels of pregnant women with high health-literacy levels decreased, the levels of those who were employed, had a high-er level of education, and had a bad relationship with their spouses increased. Awareness of the factors affect-ing pregnant women’s prenatal distress can guide the provision of adequate care and support interventions during pregnancy.

We aimed to identify the quality of life (QoL) of patients with psoriasis, to determine the possi-ble differences depending on the therapeutic modalities (biologic, conventional treatment and phototherapy), and to examine other variables that could affect the success of the treatment.

This research was a non-experimental, quantitative, observational study that included 183 psoriasis patients. The study was conducted from November 2021 to December 2022 at the University Clinical Center Kragujevac, Serbia. The following instruments were used: Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), as well as a general questionnaire that contained a set of questions which re-ferred to sociodemographic data.

There was a statistically significant difference in the average values of the DLQI score concerning the application of different therapeutic modalities (P<0.001). Biologic treatment was the modality with the lowest impairments in the QoL domain (average value of DLQI score 10.6±7.3), followed by patients on conventional treatment (average value of DLQI score 12.9±7.9), and the highest levels of impaired QoL were in patients who received phototherapy (average value of the DLQI score 13.7±9.3).

Patients on biological therapy at all four time points individually (baseline, 4, 12 and 16 weeks) had the lowest average values of the DLQI score, i.e. the best QoL compared to subjects who received other therapy.

Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is recommended to locally advanced rectal cancer, especially for the lower and middle ones. However, the role of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in rectosigmoid junction can-cer remains undetermined. We investigated whether patients with a good response to neoadjuvant chemoradio-therapy will have a relatively better long-term survival compared with those with no response.

Overall, 1325 patients diagnosed with locally advanced rectosigmoid junction cancer from Surveil-lance, Epidemiology, and End-Results (SEER) cancer registry database (2004-2014, America) were selected. All of them had received neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and were evaluated by Collaborative Stage Data Collec-tion System. We performed Kaplan–Meier univariate analysis and Cox regression multivariate analysis models to estimate the potential prognostic factors of long-term survival outcomes. Response to neoadjuvant chemoradio-therapy and histological type of tumor were the two prognostic factors.

The 5-year OS was 78.1% in responders, and 63.4% in nonresponders. In addition the 5-year DSS was 85.1% in responders, and 72.9% in nonresponders.

Based on SEER database in locally advanced rectosigmoid junction cancer, patients with a good response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy could have a benefit of long-term survival.

We aimed to investigate the effects of a nonviolent and nonverbal communication and self-acceptance training program among Korean nursing students.

We enrolled students in nursing departments at three universities in Busan Metropolitan City, South Korea. The students were randomly allocated to the experimental (n = 38) and control groups (n = 36); subse-quently, they completed questionnaires before and after training. Data were collected on March 2023. The experimental group was enrolled in a program comprising 390 minutes of lecture, practice, role play, discus-sion, and reflection in 8-h daily sessions, with a total of eight sessions. The training sought to allow students to understand and practice nonviolent and nonverbal communication. Data were analyzed using descriptive sta-tistics, chi-square tests, and a paired t-test.

Compared with the control group, the experimental group showed a significant post-intervention improvement in the nonviolent communication scores (t = -2.442, P= 0.020); however, there were no signifi-cant between-group differences in the post-intervention nonverbal communication or self-acceptance scores.

Customized communication training programs are required to address communication compe-tencies among medical personnel, including nursing students. Moreover, it is crucial to set standards for com-munication competency. Specifically, from a long-term perspective, a continuous educational strategy is re-quired to effectively improve the communication capabilities of nursing students in Korea. It is possible to develop training programs that can systematically improve communication competency among nursing stu-dents.

We aimed to evaluate the quality indicators monitored within the scope of quality standards health.

In this descriptive study, patients who visited the home health services unit in 2021, were included. Patient age and diagnostic data were obtained from the Basic Health Statistics Module. Other information such as the number of patient visits and nutritional status were obtained from the indicator data collection form fol-lowed by the quality management unit of our hospital and from the home health services unit. We included the data of Antalya Training and Research Hospital. Microsoft Excel and SPSS 25.0 program were used in the anal-ysis of the data, and the data obtained were shown as numbers and ratios (%).

When the quality indicators of home health services delivery were examined, the timely response rate of the application was 100%, the nutritional status of all patients was evaluated using the Nutritional Risk Score (NRS-2002) evaluation form at the first patient visit; the patients receiving health care from the home health unit of our hospital visited an average of three times in a year, and the health service from the home health unit was determined: the annual average rate of medical appointments kept with patients who receive medical care at the scheduled time is 83%.

Quality indicators are being met well, and good-quality care services are being delivered in the home health service of the training and research hospitals.

We aimed to explor the therapeutic effect and molecular mechanism of licochalcone A (LCA) on colon cancer.

This study was carried out in 2020-2021 in Nanjing Tongren Hospital, China. Colon cancer HCT116 cells were treated with different concentrations of LCA. Cell counting kit-8, colony formation and flow cytometry assays were used to analyze cell viability, proliferation and apoptosis. Wound healing and transwell experiments were used to measure cell migration and invasion ability. The expression of ADAM9 and apoptosis-related proteins in different LCA treatment groups was detected by western blot. HCT116 cells were transfected with ADAM9 small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) or overexpression vectors. The database screened the upstream miRNA targeting ADAM9 and predicted the targeted binding site between miR-1270 and ADAM9, which was verified by a dual-luciferase reporter assay. Rescue experiments were performed to confirm the effects of the miR-1270/ADAM9 axis on cell proliferation and metastasis.

LCA decreased cell growth (P<0.05), migration (P<0.05), and invasion (P<0.05) of colon cancer cells and inhibited ADAM9 expression in a dose-dependent manner. LCA affected the functions of colon cancer cells by negatively regulating the expression of ADAM9. MiR-1270, increased by LCA, targeted and sup-pressed ADAM9 expression significantly (P<0.001). ADAM9 overexpression restrained miR-1270 mimic and LCA-induced changes in cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, and promoted apoptosis in HCT116 cells significantly (P<0.01). LCA and miR-1270 mimic inactivated the Akt/NF-κB pathway, while ADAM9 over-expression rescued it.

LCA exhibited antitumor efficacy in HCT116 cells by inhibiting the Akt/NF-κB signaling path-way by regulating the miR-1270/ADAM9 axis.

Hypertension is a common public health problem with potentially serious consequences. We aimed to explore the direct costs of hypertension treatment in Iran.

Literature review and STEPS survey were used to estimate the incidence and prevalence of hyperten-sion for Iranian males and females and the proportion of its treatment coverage in 2020. A standard national protocol for hypertension treatment was used to estimate the required medical services including visits, medica-tions, and lab tests. The cost of each service and the total cost of the disease were identified using the national reference costs.

About 23.39 million people suffer from moderate systolic blood pressure (BP of 120 to 139 mm/Hg) and a further 14.6 million people had severe BP (≥140 mm/Hg). Nearby 39.8% of these patients, receive BP treatment. The direct costs of hypertension treatment were 19,006.08 billion IR Rials (USD 87.54 million), of which 16.60% and 83.40% of the costs were related to new and prior cases, respectively. The costs of patient visits, medications, and lab tests were 56%, 35.51%, and 8.49% of the total costs, respectively.

The prevalence and economic burden of hypertension are relatively high in Iran. Early detection and treatment of hypertension might have a significant effect on reducing its complications and costs.

Sport Medicine maintains an active lifestyle and reduces or inhibits countless age-related chang-es in physical and physiological function by substituting sports methods for people. Improving the scientific situation in sports medicine over time will lead to progress in the field of prevention and reduction of mortali-ty. This study aimed to analyze sports medicine research in the world in terms of scientometric indicators using the Scopus database.

This is a bibilometric study. The study population consisted of all articles indexed in the Scopus citation database in the field of sports medicine, registered by researchers from 2011 to 2020. They used SciVal analytical tool as a bibliometric tool that allows the analysis of publications in various parameters, and VOSviewer and Excel software as drawing all citation maps.

The highest increase in scientific production of sports medicine was in 2015. Overall, 1,695 articles were published, which received an average of 13 citations per article. The highest rate of scientific production is related to the United States with 41%, followed by the United Kingdom with 16% and Australia with 9%, with a significant difference in the second and third which indicates the high quality and impact of this group of studies. The British Journal of Sports Medicine has contributed the most to the publication of highly cited articles. The most commonly used terms include "Head Impact", "Athletes", and "Sport Injury"

Considering the importance of sports medicine in the prevention, control and treatment of many diseases, as well as the growth of the elderly population, it is necessary to develop research in this area. By identifying the features of highly cited articles in this field, a clear view of the top authors and publications and widely used topics was provided.

Traffic accidents are one of the most critical health problems and the ninth leading cause of death globally. We aimed to determine the Mortality rate and the number of Years of Life Lost (YLL) due to road traffic accidents.

In this retrospective cohort study, mortality rate and YLL due to road traffic accidents were exam-ined in Fars province, central Iran during the years 2004-2019. Mortality statistics were collected through death registration of ministry of health and medical education for Fars Province. Age Standardized mortality Rate (ASR) was calculated and join point regression analysis carried out to examine the trend of YLL rate. Data were analyzed using Excel spreadsheet version 2016 and Join point Regression Program 4.9.0.0.

During the 16-year study period, 25,858 deaths due to road traffic accidents occurred in the province. 79.2% (20483 cases) were in men, and 33.7% (8703 cases) were aged 15-29 years. Total YLL during the 16-year study period were 458,975 (14.6 per 1000 people) in men, 117,999 (3.8 per 1000 people) in women. According to the join point regression, the 16- year trend of YLL rate due to premature mortality was decreasing: AAPC was -4.9% (95% CI: -8.8 to -0.9; P=0.018) for male, and -3.5% (95% CI: -6.3 to-0.5; P=0.011) for female.

Considering that the number of deaths, mortality rate and YLL has decreased in Fars province during the 16 years under study. Therefore, because the mortality rate due to road traffic accidents in Iran is higher than the global average, the need for training programs for drivers, compliance with standards and retro-fitting of vehicles, road safety, driving supervision and the use of seat belts are essential.

Family history of gastric cancer (GC) in first-degree relatives may increase the risk of GC. This study aimed to assess how family history of GC in first-degree relatives really affects the risk of GC in an extremely high-risk population.

A large population-based case-control study was carried out on 1222 incident GC cases and 1235 controls in Ardabil Province-a high-risk area in North-West Iran-to assess the associations of GC family history in first-degree relatives with the risk of GC (2003-2017).

GC family history did not significantly associate with the risk of GC overall (ORadj=1.09, 95% CI: 0.80–1.47, P=0.589). It found no significant association of GC family history in a parent, and in a fa-ther, mother, and sister separately, with the risk of GC. However, GC risk was significantly associated with a history of GC in a sibling (ORadj=1.61, 95% CI: 1.11–2.35, P=0.013), especially brother (ORadj=2.24, 95% CI: 1.41–3.64, P=0.0008). The risk was greatly increased in subjects with two or more affected brothers (ORadj =5.56, 95% CI: 2.33–14.20, P=0.0002).

We did not find a familial tendency to cardia GC and non-cardia GC as well as histopatho-logic features. Determining the type of first-degree relationships with GC may, therefore, be more im-portant than assessing family history alone for predicting the risk of GC in this high-risk area.