Journal of Human Environment and Health Promotion
Year:2018 | Volume:4 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

Background: The enormous numbers of people involved in artisanal gold mining (AGM) together with primitive methods being used in processing gold have resulted in health and environmental challenges. Based on this, both the local and international stakeholders in mining and health sectors engaged in therapeutic practice to mitigate the challenges.Methods: Physical observation and soil samples were assessed in order to identify the occupational health hazards associated with AGM while questionnaire was used to evaluate the effectiveness of adopted occupational therapy practices across the study area. Soil sample was randomly collected between the depths of 0-20 cm. Soil digestion was carried out in triplicate and lead concentration was determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer.Results: The result of a cumulative carcinogenic risk lifetime for ingestion, dermal contact and inhalation exposure pathways were given as 1.86×10-1, 8.83×10-4 and 5.45×10-6 respectively. The major occupational health hazards associated with AGM were body weakness, brain damage, gastrointestinal tract, neuropsychiatric, injuries and death of miners while the removed occupational therapy practices adopted were awareness campaign, remediation/chelating treatment, sensitization and use of modern equipment training.Conclusion: The study established that most of the adopted occupational therapy practices were efficient and effective to ensure safe practices of AGM across the study area.

Background: Chemistry laboratories of universities are dangerous. However, there is no appropriate instrument to assess staffs' awareness. The present study aims at developing a standardized instrument for awareness assessment of laboratory personnel on safe work.Methods: The present study is a kind of developing instrument methodology. The study was implemented in two phases: (I) generating items based on the review of relevant literature and interviews, and (II) assessment of the content validity according to seven occupational health and laboratory sciences experts. The validity of the tool was determined based on content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR).Results: In the item generation phase, 53 items were developed in four areas including storage of chemical substances, usage of chemical substances, personal protection equipment, and general observations. The value of CVI was in the range of 0.75-0.91, while the CVR was in the range of 0.4 to 1. Based on these values, some items were omitted and, finally, the content validity for the 40-item questionnaire was established.Conclusion: Since the content validity of this questionnaire was established, it can be used in future studies.

Background: The shoulder joint internal rotation deficit is inter alia the most important risk factors for throwing athletes. Thus, the present study aims at investigating the effect of eight weeks of rotator cuff muscles’ specific exercises on the range of motion, proprioception and the activation time of the selective shoulder muscles in male volleyball players with shoulder joint internal rotation deficit.Methods: Thirty male athletes with shoulder joint internal rotation deficit took part in the present study and after preliminary screening and identification of the qualified athletes, the testes were assigned to two groups: experimental (n=15) and control (n=15).Results: The results of the statistical tests indicated that rotator cuff muscles’ specific exercises have had a significant effect on the range of motion, proprioception and electrical activation of the anterior deltoid muscle, medial deltoid muscle, posterior deltoid muscle, infraspinatus and supraspinatus.Conclusion: According to the positive influence of the rotator cuff muscles’ specific exercises, it is recommended that these rotator cuff muscles’ specific exercises should be added to the rehabilitation-therapy programs for male volleyball players with shoulder joint internal rotation deficit so that the limitations resulting from such a deficit in the range of motion could be eased.

Background: The rate of drug dependence and abuse is a growing problem in the Iran, number of opioid - dependent people is estimated at a total of 2000.000-4000.000 individuals. The aim of this study was a Comparison of Methadone and Buprenorphine in the Treatment of Opiate Addiction referring to a treatment clinic of Baharan psychiatric hospital in Zahedan city.Methods: In a cross sectional study, 152 patients with opioid dependence were assigned into two treatment groups i.e. Methadone and Buprenorphine. Data were collected from patients using a questionnaire COWS. ANOVA and repeated measures regressions were used to evaluate the significant differences on using drug (methadone and Buprenorphine), time, and drug-by-time interaction terms.Results: Patients on MMT and BMT differed in terms of Age started addiction (P=0.0001); education level (P=0.0001); and income (P=0.0001), and no differed in term of sex (P=0.8). There was no significant difference between the two groups taking buprenorphine and methadone (P=0.87).Conclusion: In conclusion, our study indicated, Buprenorphine and methadone are both proven to be effective treatment options.

Background: Economic pressures are important factors contributing to accidents. Despite the importance of economic factors in the safety of taxi drivers, a few literatures have referred to these factor.Methods: This research was a phenomenology study. The purposive sampling was used, so, 18 taxi drivers with the average 43.05 ± 10.22 years old participated in the study of whom, 12 took part in individual in-depth interviews (IDIs) and 6 participated in a focus group discussion (FGD). The Bengtson’s method (2016) was adopted to analyze qualitative data using content analysis.Results: Two themes interlacing the impact of taxi drivers’ Economic pressure on their safety were identified. The themes referred to taxi drivers’ occupational expenses and livelihood concerns. Each of the themes were consisted of two categories, namely competition for passenger, taxi-keeping expenses and stability, adequacy of income, and undesirable household economic conditions, respectively.Conclusion: This study showed the significant impact of economic pressure on the safety of taxi drivers as participants repeatedly reported unsafe driving behaviors in order to increase income. They also stated that issues such as unemployment and inflation caused many people to enter this occupation which led to dangerous competition over passengers and subsequent aberrant driving behaviors.

Background: People with functional ankle instability are deficient in various factors that need to overcome all these problems via a multifaceted and combined exercises. Therefore, the main purpose of this semi- research is to study the effect of the comprehensive combined program on kinematic of lower limb in active men suffering from chronic ankle instability.Methods: The subjects of this research will be active men at the university suffering from chronic ankle instability, of which 30 individuals will be purposeful chosen based on the values of the research inclusion criteria and will be divided into two group of control and experimental. Tools for collecting research inputs were motion analysis, and foot ankle inability index questionnaire.Results: To compare the groups, Covariance test at 0.05 alpha level was used. Results showed that there are significant differences (P£0.05) before and after the exercise program, between the average scores of parameters elected kinematic lower limb variables, in the experimental group; while in the control group these changes were not statistically significant.Conclusion: The general results of current research showed that comprehensive combined exercise program can be effective and secure on improving kinematic lower limb.

Background: The present study was conducted to investigate the beliefs of girl students in Pakdasht city about obese people and the factors related to it.Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 350 grade-seven students in Pakdasht city. The data collection tool was a BAOP questionnaire, including demographic information and eight five-choice questions on the beliefs about obesity and obese people. To analyze the data, the SPSS 16 software as well as Chi-Square test and one-way ANOVA were used.Results: The result reported, 141 (40.3%) students disagreed with the sentence "Obesity often occurs as a result of an illness." and 74 ones (21.1%) totally disagreed. Or, asking a question about the eating habits of obese people ("The majority of obese people have bad eating habits that lead to their obesity.") indicated that 73 students (20.9%) totally agreed and 128 ones (36.6%) agreed with the idea. In addition, 15 students (4.2%) totally agreed with the sentence "Obesity rarely occurs due to the person's lack of will."Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that high school female students had little knowledge about the causes of obesity.

Background: The socio-economical and geographical conditions of Iran cause most of the people consume dairy products or are in close contact with livestock, that these expose many individuals to Brucella spp. Since Qazvin province is considered as a moderate burden of brucellosis, the need for a comprehensive epidemiological study of the disease in this province is quite essential.Methods: This study is a descriptive study (secondary data analyses) that performed on registered data in department of disease control in health centers of Qazvin province from 2002 to 2009. Data were analyzed by SPSS software (Version 16.0).Results: Totally, 4037 confirmed brucellosis cases were recorded, which the annual incidence of the disease was roughly decreasing during 2002-2009. The frequency of the illness in the male population was higher than that of women. Most cases were detected in summer and spring and occupational exposure had no significant impact on occurrence of the disease (P<0.05).Conclusion: The results of this study are greatly in line with the national pattern and other studies. Prohibition of consumption of uncontrolled traditional dairy products along with production of these products under hygienic conditions in modern industrial plants can prevent occurrences of human brucellosis.