JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & EPIDEMIOLOGY
Year:2015 | Volume:4 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

Background: Today, with the development of technology, the presence and role of human resources has been highlighted in industrial environments. Hence, the importance of safety culture is growing. Mining is the one of the most dangerous occupations. Therefore, this study was performed to determine the effect of health, safety, and environment management system (HSE-MS) on safety climate in one of the mines in Yazd Province, Iran, in 2014.Materials and Methods: The study population consisted of 32 employees of the operations unit working in one of the mines in Yazd Province. The standard 20-item Safety Climate Questionnaire (α=0.77) which was valid and reliable was used to evaluate the safety culture at the unit. In this questionnaire, the items were scored based on a 5-point Likert scale. Data were collected before and 2 months after the HSE-MS training courses. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were willingness to participate in the project, at least 1 year of work experience, and the lack of specific and neurological diseases. The collected data were entered into SPSS statistical software.Results: In this study, 28.1% of the study population was single and 71.9% married. The average score of the safety climate dimensions of managerial commitment, safety communications, safe environment, responsibility of managers, perception of risk, job satisfaction, and knowledge and awareness of safety issues was 11.09 ± 2.66, 7.50 ± 2.36, 8.09 ± 1.92, 6.56 ± 1.58, 8.43 ± 1.56, 4.59 ± 1.58, and 4.25 ± 1.27, respectively. The dimension of understanding of risk and knowledge and awareness of safety issues were predictors of job satisfaction in workers.Conclusions: It can be concluded that attitudes of the examined miners toward safety climate were at a moderate level, and that the level of their attitudes increased after the HSE-MS training course. Therefore, safety climate can be greatly improved with HSE-MS training course.

Background: Gastrointestinal cancers are among the most common cancers in different communities. Gastrointestinal tract cancer is the most common cancer among Iranian men and the second common cancer among Iranian women. Due to the impact of environmental factors on the risk of gastrointestinal cancer and the increasing use of agricultural pesticides, this study aimed to investigate the effects of exposure to pesticides on gastrointestinal cancer among pistachio farmers, Rafsanjan, Iran Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 79 patients with gastrointestinal cancer (cases) and 143 healthy people (controls) were studied. For each case, two people were selected as controls for each case from their neighbors and relatives. Data were collected using the study checklist which included demographic information and specific items related to their exposure. Data were analyzed using independent t-test, chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, and logistic regression.Results: The risk of gastrointestinal cancer after controlling some confounding factors among individuals who were exposed to spraying pesticides for less than 10 days per year was 1.38 (CI: 0.70-2.71), and in individuals who were exposed to it for between 10 to 20 days per year was 1.71 (CI: 0.79-3.7). The difference was not statistically significant. However, for individuals who had this exposure for more than 20 days per year, the risk was increased to 8.53 (CI: 2.1-34.7) which was statistically significant (P=0.004). Unexpected exposure to agricultural pesticides and living close to pistachio gardens, both significantly (P<0.05) increased the risk of gastrointestinal cancers by 8.67 (CI: 1-75.71) and 2.7 (CI: 1.43-5.1), respectively. Among subjects who used protective equipment, the risk of gastrointestinal cancer was statistically lower (OR=0.18, 95%CI: 0.042-0.85) than this risk among people who did not use this equipment (P=0.03).Conclusions: Our findings showed that exposure to pesticides, in particular for long time, increased the risk of gastrointestinal cancer among pistachio farmers. Further studies in this area are recommended.

Background: Due to the increasing number of stressful life events among the elderly and the rapid spread of diabetes among them, the present study compared the stressful life events of diabetic elderly with those of non-diabetic elderly.Materials and Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on 240 senior citizens of over 60 years of age (120 diabetic patients and 120 non-diabetics) of Rafsanjan, Iran. They were chosen through convenience sampling from among visitors of the Diabetes Clinic and Ali Ebne Abitaleb Laboratory in Rafsanjan. The data collection tool used was the questionnaire designed by Pickel et al. This questionnaire consists of two parts; one part is related to demographic information and the other to stressful life events. To analyze the data, Mann-Whitney test, chi-squared, Fisher’s exact test, and independent t-test were employed in SPSS software.Results: The frequency of psychological stresses caused by familial, personal, and environmental factors was higher among the diabetic elderly (P<0.05). In addition, the frequency of psychological stresses caused by social stressful factors was higher among the non-diabetic elderly. The number of occupational-financial and environmental stressful factors was more among male diabetic patients, and the number of personal stressful factors was more among female patients (P<0.05). The number of occupational-financial stressful factors was significantly higher among non-diabetic men than women (P<0.05).Conclusions: According to the results, stressful factors play a major role in the onset of diabetes.By recognizing the sources of stress with the assistance of patients, and their family and medical team, effective steps can be taken to prevent and control its probable effects and side effects.

Background: Cadmium (Cd) is an extremely toxic metal and environmental exposure to Cd has been particularly problematic in the world. Oral exposure to Cd may result in adverse effects on a number of tissues, the immune system, and the cardiovascular system. Compounds containing Cd are also carcinogenic. The presence of Cd in drinking water resources in the southeastern region of Rafsanjan plain (Iran) at concentrations greater than acceptable limits may result in various adverse health effects. The aim of this research was to test the chelation potency of deferasirox (DFS or ICL670), a tridentate metal chelator, and deferiprone (L1), a bidentate metal chelator, in the mobilization of Cd in Cd-exposed rats as a biological model.Materials and Methods: Male Wistar rats were exposed to 40 mg/kg body weight of cadmium chloride in drinking water for 6 weeks, followed by treatment with DFS (100 mg/kg body weight, oral, once daily) and L1 (100 mg/kg body weight, oral, once daily), alone or in combination, for 7 consecutive days. After chelation therapy, the rats were anesthetized by ether vapor and immobilized by cervical dislocation. Then, their heart, liver, kidneys, intestine, and blood were sampled for clinical hematological variables and determination of Cd and Fe concentration by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The data were subjected to statistical analysis using Student’s t-test. All Ρ values of less than 0.05 were considered significant.Results: The results show that both chelators (DFS and L1) increase the removal of Cd from the tissues. No effects of Cd or any of the two treatments (L1 or DFS) were observed on white blood cell (WBC) count, red blood cell (RBC) count, and hemoglobin (Hb) level.Conclusions: The comparison of single and combined therapy showed that the combined chelation therapy (DFS+L1) was more effective in depleting Cd concentration in soft tissues.

Background: In recent years, there has been an increase in the amount and variety of data generated in the field of healthcare, (e.g., data related to the prevalence of contagious diseases in the society). Various patterns of individuals’ relationships in the society make the analysis of the network a complex, highly important process in detecting and preventing the incidence of diseases. Therefore, it would be helpful to propose a model for storing and processing related data which is especially designed for such an application.Materials and Methods: In this paper, a data model is proposed for the management of data for individuals infected with contagious diseases. This data model has the ability to efficiently detect the path of infectious diseases and the probable epidemicity. The proposed model is based on the graph data model, a type of NoSQL data model. In order to design this data model, essential requirements and queries were determined based on the needs of experts in this field.Results: The proposed data model was experimentally evaluated using Neo4j, a well-known graph data management system. It is shown in this paper that the proposed data model has a better performance than the traditional relational model in terms of system utilization and performance (i.e., data storage space, complexity and the time of finding the shortest infection path between two individuals, traversing the graph, finding at risk individuals, and etc.).Conclusions: The management of data for epidemic detection of HIV infection requires an appropriate data model that can provide the required functionalities and features with an acceptable quality. Graph data models are suitable NoSQL models for some of these features (e.g., epidemic detection via traversing of the graph). The proposed graph-based data model provides the main functionalities and features while outperforming performance and utilization metrics.

Background: Today, obesity is considered as a health problem that increases the risk of some diseases. Therefore, identifying the effective factors on obesity is of great importance. Shift work is one of the indicators for increased risk of obesity in society and also shift work may cause various health problems for workers in military organizations. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between shift work, and body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio (WHR) among military personnel in 2016.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 100 male military personnel in Southern Iran in June-July 2016. The participants were divided into two groups based on their working schedule; shift work (50 personnel) and day work (50 personnel). The two groups were similar in terms of type of work. The subjects were selected through simple random sampling. The data collection tools consisted of a tape measure and a digital balance. Data analysis and comparison of BMI and WHR in the two groups were performed using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation in SPSS.Results: The findings revealed that mean body weight, waist circumference, hip circumference, BMI, and WHR were higher in shift workers than day workers. The findings of the current study showed that 81.6% of shift workers had a BMI of higher than 25 kg/m2 and 80.3% of shift workers had a WHR of higher than 0.90 m. Moreover, 86.2% of day workers had a BMI of less than 25 kg/m2 and 83.1% of days workers had a WHR of less than 0.90 m. The Pearson correlation coefficient for BMI (r=0.71) and WHR (r=0.64) in shift workers were higher than day workers.Conclusions: The findings of this research showed that shift work increased the risk of overweight and obesity. Increased BMI and WHR are the cause of disease and require intervention measures (job rotation, sports activities, and avoidance of long duration of shift work) among shift workers.