نشریه مهندسی بهداشت محیط
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 38، پاییز 1401)

Iran included in the list of vulnerable countries in the field of water resources. This concerns highlights the essential need for planning and managing water resources in Iran. Domestic water requires serious attention due to the cost of water supply and its significant role in promoting public health. The present work aimed to investigate the water consumption in Gonabad for different municipal sectors.

Having a population of 50899, Gonabad is located in Khorasan Razavi province. Water consumption data from residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional sectors were collected for 3 consecutive years from 2018 to 2020. Per capita, water consumption, and water demand changes for different sectors over time then analyzed using demographic information. Water consumption during 2020 was considered as water demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The average per capita water consumption in Gonabad in 2018, 2019, and 2020 were 125, 146, and 161L, respectively, indicated an average annual increase of about 11 percent. Of total water consumption, 86.9% corresponded to residential, 3.4% to commercial, 8.6% to institutional, and 7. 9% to industrial sectors. The present study also showed that in a three-year basis, the mean water consumption in residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial sectors increased by 22.9, 4.5, 0.8, and 27.6 percent, respectively. Water consumption during 2021 experiences an incremental trend that could be attributed to the crisis caused by Covid-19 in Iran.

The present study showed that the water demand for Gonabad has increased about 11% during the study period and the residential sector with the highest growth rate accounts for the highest water consumption demand. Moreover, industrial growth in the study period contribute to a significant increase in water demand. The present study also highlighted the essential considerations that must take for water supply in unusual situations like COVID-19 that increased water demand.

Wastewater of food industries contains large amounts of suspended solids and other chemicals which produced during cleaning and sanitary purposes. Therefore, removal of these pollutants from effluent is very important. The aim of this study was to removal of turbidity from the effluent of Hamedan Pegah Dairy Company using extracted natural coagulant from plane seed.

In this descriptive study, the effects of contact time, adsorbent dose, pH and turbidity values on efficiency of turbidity removal from food industries effluent were investigated. Also, adsorbent characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), moreover, the adsorption of turbidity studied from both kinetics and equilibrium points of view.

Based on the results obtained, the highest turbidity removal efficiency at optimum conditions (i.e. pH of 8, contact time of 60 min, initial turbidity of 1 NTU and adsorbent dose of 0.1 g/l) was found to be 98%. Also, the adsorption kinetic of turbidity via plane tree seed coagulant followed pseudo second-order (PSO) model (R2 = 0.991), while the adsorption isotherm obeyed Langmuir model (R2 = 0.994) with maximum adsorption capacities of 0.203 mg/g.

In conclusion, due to the natural coagulant from plane tree seed showed a high efficiency to removal of turbidity from wastewater, it could be used as a suitable alternative in comparing with common chemical coagulants for reduce the pollutants from the effluent of food industries in wastewater treatment plants.

Bread is one of the most important food sources in our country. The hygiene of bread is very important and one of the most important things to note is the hygiene of bakeries. The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the current situation of bakeries in Malekshahi city.

This descriptive-cross-sectional study was conducted in Malekshahi city in 1400. All active bakeries in Malekshahi city (52 units) were investigated by census method. Then, information was collected from the bakeries of Malekshahi city by using the traditional bakery health inspection checklist. The collected data were analyzed using Excel software.

The results showed that from the point of view of personal hygiene, food hygiene, tools and equipment hygiene and building hygiene, respectively, 79.73, 68.37, 55.59 and 71.10 percent have a favorable condition and the total average compliance index environmental hygiene in bakeries of Malekshahi city was reported as 68.69 percent.

In order to promote and improve the health situation, environmental health inspectors in health centers, while applying stricter rules, especially in the field of paying attention to the health of tools and equipment used in bakeries, by continuously monitoring and controlling these places and formulating practical laws and monitoring their implementation, ensure the health of bread as the dominant force of the people.

The underlying disease plays an important role in the severity and mortality rate caused by covid-19. On the other hand environmental factors such as climatic conditions can affect the dynamics of many infectious diseases. The main purpose of this research was determination of mortality caused by Covid-19 in high-risk groups and its relation with climatic conditions in Isfahan city from Feb 2020 to the end of Dec 2020.

Materials: 

In the study period, the number of people included in the study by census (81881 person). To collect data, an information collection form was used, including the person's condition in terms of severity of illness and hospitalization, along with demographic information (age and gender) and their type of illness. Also, climatic parameters such as average temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and wind speed during the study period were obtained separately for each month from the website of Isfahan Meteorology Department and the data were analyzed by SPSS software (p<0.05).

The number of infected people in Nov 2020 was the number of 20130. There was no significant relationship between the variables of temperature, relative humidity and precipitation with the rate of morbidity. But the average wind speed had a significant inverse relationship with the morbidity rate. Also, there was no significant relationship between the variables of climatic conditions and the rate of mortality caused by Covid-19.

The result of Poisson regression on all high-risk people (with underlying disease) to investigate the mortality rate by month, except for the precipitation variable, was significant for other variables.

Women's beauty salons are among the public places where attention to environmental health aspects is important in the person and society, because the lack of sanitation and non-performance, and so on are a threat to the health of the community. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the health status of women's hairdressing in Eyvan city in 2017.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on all women's hairdressers in Eyvan in 2017. Information gathering was done by visiting women's hairdressing salons and completing the checklist form of the health regulations from the beauty salon and women's beauty salons and observation and interviewing. To analyze the data collected from the Excel software.

The results showed that 14.67% and 57.68% of the decorators had a medical examination card and a public health education certificate, respectively. From the point of view of the health of tools and equipment, 57.14%, and in terms of the health condition of the building, a total of 42.4% of the barber shops had a favorable situation. Also, 60% of the hairdressers do not use a safety box to remove sharp objects from the body. 

According to the results, the sanitary condition of women's hairdressers in the city of Eyvan was not consistent with some of the indicators, and the need for proper education, planning, and intensification of examination for providing services such as tattoo, waxing, and nail polish to control the health condition. Places and community health are essential.

 Swimming is one of the recreational activities and an important sport for the health of the body and soul. In the case of non-observance of sanitary standards in swimming pools, health problems and transmission of infectious diseases to swimmers will occur. The aim of this study was to investigate the environmental health status of swimming pools in Ilam city.  

This research was a descriptive cross-sectional study where the environmental health status of 8 active swimming pools in Ilam city was evaluated. To conduct this research, the checklist was prepared by the ministry of health for assessing the environmental health status of active swimming pools. Through direct observation, and accurate measurement of completion, and excel software was used for analyzing the collected data.

The results showed that PH, residual chlorine, health personnel, and insect control were 50,75,100, and 75% respectively. Also, the turbidity and temperature in 100% of the samples were undesirable.

The tool and equipment sector were less desirable compared to other sectors. Critical parameters such as turbidity, water temperature and ambient temperature of the pools should be carefully monitored.

 Increasing antibiotic resistance in most bacteria has led to the development of natural antimicrobial compounds. The purpose of this study was to investigate the disinfection effect of Ajowan essential oil (EO) on the standard strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

In this study, the essential oil was prepared by distillation of Ajowan. The components of the essential oil were separated and identified by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Then the antibacterial effects of two combinations including Ajowan EO +dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and glutaraldehyde 2% on standard strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa were evaluated and determined using dilution broth and disk diffusion methods.

The results of the study showed that the most component of the essential oil consist of: Thymol (50%), P-cymene (23.6%), and Terpinen (20.3%). The mean values of MIC in the antibacterial substances (Ajowan EO+DMSO,   Glutaraldehyde 2%) were 83 and 125µg/mL respectively. The mean values of MBC for abovementioned substances were 125 and 166 µg/mL respectively. The mean diameter of the inhibition zone in the MIC concentration was 11and 12.66 mm respectively.

According to the obtained results, Essential oils Ajowan has similar effect of glutaraldehyde 2% on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It may be a possible substitute to glutaraldehyde in hospital disinfection purposes.

The establishment of automotive industries in urban areas can affect the air quality of cities due to the variety of pollutants emitted from them. The aim of this study is to investigate the simultaneous effects of the Saipa automobile industry and two surrounding highways on air quality.

In this study, meteorological data suitable for modeling the distribution of pollutants have been prepared from the Mehrabad meteorological station, and the modeling of the distribution of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide gaseous pollutants released from automobile factories and linear sources was done by AERMOD software, and the accuracy of the results It was confirmed by field measurements of NO2 pollution by passive adsorbents.

The validation results show the acceptable performance of the model. The highest annual nitrogen dioxide concentration of 1209 parts per billion can be seen at the coordinates of 515326.80 and 3953279.17 meters inside the Lashkari highway, which is about 23 times the NAAQS standard, and the highest concentration of CO, 12.6 parts per million, can be seen at the coordinates of 515326.80 and 3953279.17 meters inside the Lashkari highway, which is about 1.4 times the NAAQS standard.

The exposure of people passing by on the roads to concentrations higher than the NAAQS standards of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide shows the need for the government and authorities to take action in relation to highways and traffic laws.