BACKGROUND Little is known about the epidemiology of prostate cancer in Iranian men. We carried out an active prostate cancer surveillance program in five provinces of Iran. METHODS Data used in this study were obtained from population-based cancer registries between 1996 and 2000. RESULTS The age-standardized incidence rate of prostate carcinoma in the five provinces was 5.1 per 100,000 pe...

OBJECTIVE Despite concerns regarding a diabetes epidemic in the Middle East, internationally published data on national estimates of prevalent type 2 diabetes in Iran do not exist. With this article, we document a dramatically high prevalence of diabetes in Iran. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Our data are based on the results of the first Survey of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases of I...

BACKGROUND Visual impairment is a very important public health problem. In Iran, reports of visual impairment and blindness have been published from the urban population while the prevalence of visual impairment in the rural population has not been reported. The purpose of this study to determine the prevalence and causes of visual impairment, in a rural population in district of based on age a...

Nowadays, cardiovascular diseases are highly prevalent in human communities. Hypertension is a multifactorial disease which causes a mortality twice higher than general population. Given the fact that medicinal plants have long been used to treat hypertension and are currently being administered for this disease, we sought to report the mostly effective and important medicinal plants on hyperte...

Pesticides are widely used in Iranian agriculture and this has made a major toxicological concern among health professionals. The objective of this study is to explore national data about pesticides toxicity. All relevant databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus in a time period of 1960 to 2012 were searched for the keywords "Pesticides, Iran, Environment, and Population studies". A...

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori colonizes the human stomach, with individual infections persisting for decades. The spread of the bacterium has been shown to reflect both ancient and recent human migrations. We have sequenced housekeeping genes from H. pylori isolated from 147 Iranians with well-characterized geographical and ethnic origins sampled throughout Iran and compared them with seque...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity and their associated factors in the middle-aged population of Shahroud, North of Iran. METHODS In a population-based cross-sectional study with random cluster sampling, 300 clusters of Shahroud (north of Iran) were randomly selected from the 40-64 yr old population of the city, during 2009 and 2010. Upo...

The majority of rural population in Iran has limited access to agricultural information. However, bridging the digital gap between urban and rural areas has been a major challenge for authorities in Iran. Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for poverty reduction and for the economic empowerment of poor women and men in rural areas have been experienced world wide. Tele-centers ...

AIM To estimate the prevalence of obesity particularly abdominal obesity among adults aged between 19 to 65 years in five major cities in Iran. METHODS In this cross-sectional study, the anthropometric measurements including weight, height, body mass index, waist and hip circumferences were performed in 5724 healthy adults, representative sample of Iranian population, in the urban areas of fi...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the duties of regional healthcare workers (Behvarzes) regarding healthcare of pupils in the rural areas of Iran. METHOD This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted in 2007-2008 on 384 pupils and their school managers in the rural areas of Sharbabak in Kerman, Iran. The research population was evaluated with separate questionnaires for the managers and the pupi...