Practical strategies to achieve resilient health systems: results from a scoping review.

BACKGROUND: This paper presents the results of a systematic review to identify practical strategies to create the institutions, skills, values, and norms that will improve health systems resilience. METHODS: A PRISMA 2020 compliant systematic review identified peer-reviewed and gray literature on practical strategies to make health systems more resilient. Investigators screened 970 papers to identify 65 English language papers published since 2015. RESULTS: Practical strategies focus efforts on system changes to improve a health system's resilience components of collective knowing, collective thinking, and collaborative doing. The most helpful studies identified potential lead organizations to serve as the stewards of resilience improvement, and these were commonly in national and local departments of public health. Papers on practical strategies suggested possible measurement tools to benchmark resilience components in efforts to focus on performance improvement and ways to sustain their use. Essential Public Health Function (EPHF) measurement and improvement tools are well-aligned to the resilience agenda. The field of health systems resilience lacks empirical trials linking resilience improvement interventions to outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The rigorous assessment of practical strategies to improve resilience based on cycles of measurement should be a high priority.

Exploring the criteria and factors affecting firefighters' resilience: A qualitative study.

PURPOSE: Firefighters are exposed to high levels of occupational risk factors, such as safety risks, chemical, ergonomic, and physical hazards that may jeopardize their lives. To overcome these hazards, firefighters must be physically, mentally, and personally fit to work. This study aimed to explore the criteria and factors affecting firefighters' resilience based on stakeholders' experiences. METHODS: This qualitative study was carried out using conventional content analysis. In total, 21 face-to-face interviews were conducted by firefighters who were experienced in the field. The interviews were carried out from July 2019 to January 2020. The data were collected using 3 unstructured interviews and then resumed by 18 semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was done using Graneheim method. RESULTS: The participants had more than 5 years of experience in the field of search and rescue. The extracted codes through data analysis were classified into 3 main categories (individual, organizational, and social factors), 9 sub-categories (mental, physical, occupational, managerial, colleagues-related, equipment-related, environmental, community-related, and family-related factors), as well as 19 sub-sub-categories and 570 codes. CONCLUSION: Firefighters' personality, physical condition, behavior and psychological characteristics can affect their resilience along with organizational and management factors that play significant role in people's safety. Developing a tool for assessing resilience can help decision makers to have a real depict of firefighters' job qualifications.

Fair prioritization of casualties in disaster triage: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Disasters may result in mass casualties and an imbalance between health care demands and supplies. This imbalance necessitates the prioritization of the victims based on the severity of their condition. Contributing factors and their effect on decision-making is a challenging issue in disaster triage. The present study seeks to address criteria for ethical decision-making in the prioritization of patients in disaster triage. METHODS: This conventional content analysis study was conducted in 2017. Subjects were selected from among Iranian experts using purposeful and snowball sampling methods. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and were analyzed by the content analysis. RESULTS: Efficient and effective triage and priority-oriented triage were the main categories. These categories summarized a number of medical and nonmedical factors that should be considered in the prioritization of the victims in disaster triage. CONCLUSION: A combination of measures should be considered to maximize the benefits of the prioritization of causalities in disasters. None of these measures alone would suffice to explain all aspects of ethical decision-making in disaster triage. Further investigations are needed to elaborate on these criteria in decision-making.

Disaster safety assessment of primary healthcare facilities: a cross-sectional study in Kurdistan province of Iran.

BACKGROUND: Kurdistan province of Iran is among disaster prone areas of the country. The Primary Health Care facilities in Iran deliver health services at all levels nationwide. Resiliency and flexibility of such facilities is important when a disaster occurs. Thus, evaluating functional, structural, and non-structural aspects of safety of such facilities is essential. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the instrument used to evaluate four sections of functional, structural, non-structural, and total safety of 805 healthcare facilities in Kurdistan Province was the safety evaluation checklist of primary healthcare centers, provided by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Each section scored from 0 to 100 points, and each section of the safety was classified to three safety classes according to their total score: low (≤34.0), average (34.01-66.0) and high (> 66.0). RESULTS: The levels of functional, structural, non-structural and total safety were equal to 23.8, 20.2, 42.3 and 28.7, out of 100, respectively. Regarding the functional safety, rapid response team scored the highest, while financial affairs scored the lowest. Nevertheless, in structural and non-structural sections, the scores of different items were almost similar. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study revealed that safety score of primary healthcare facilities in general was unsatisfactory. Thus, promoting preparedness, resilience and continuity of service delivery of these facilities are essential to response to disasters and emergencies. The finding of this study could be beneficial for national and provincial decision-makers and policymakers in this regard.

Iran in transition.

Being the second-largest country in the Middle East, Iran has a long history of civilisation during which several dynasties have been overthrown and established and health-related structures have been reorganised. Iran has had the replacement of traditional practices with modern medical treatments, emergence of multiple pioneer scientists and physicians with great contributions to the advancement of science, environmental and ecological changes in addition to large-scale natural disasters, epidemics of multiple communicable diseases, and the shift towards non-communicable diseases in recent decades. Given the lessons learnt from political instabilities in the past centuries and the approaches undertaken to overcome health challenges at the time, Iran has emerged as it is today. Iran is now a country with a population exceeding 80 million, mainly inhabiting urban regions, and has an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes, malignancies, mental disorders, substance abuse, and road injuries.

Health system plan for implementation of Paris agreement on climate change (COP 21): a qualitative study in Iran.

BACKGROUND: Ensuring public health is crucial in any policy debate on climate change. Paris Agreement on climate change is a global contract, through which countries have committed themselves to a public health treaty. The agreement has laid the foundation for mitigation and adaptation. This study was conducted to provide an evidence-based framework for policy-making in the health system of Iran in order to reduce the adverse effects of climate change on public health and to increase the adaptation of the health system as a result. METHODS: This is a qualitative study. We first used Delphi method to extract the components of Paris Agreement on climate change that were related to the functions and policymaking of health system in Iran. Twenty-three experts in health and climate change were identified purposefully and through snowball sampling as participants in Delphi. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire. We used SPSS software version 25 for data analysis based on the descriptive indices including the mean, the percentage of consensus above 75%, and the Kendall coordination coefficient. RESULTS: Seventy-nine components classified within nine categories were extracted. The most important examples of the implementation of Paris Agreement on climate change in the health system of Iran were: participation in the formulation of strategies for mitigation and adaptation, identifying vulnerable groups, assessing vulnerability, increasing the capacity of health services delivery during extreme events, using early warning systems, using new technologies to increase the adaptation, evaluation of interventions, financial support, increasing the number of researches, increasing the knowledge and skills of staff, and finally public awareness. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence-based policy-making is pivotal to develop effective programs to control the health effects of climate change. This research provided policy translation and customization of micro and macro provisions of Paris Agreement on climate change, in line with the political context of health system in Iran. Our finding will pave the ground, we envisage, for further steps towards capacity building and enhancement of resiliency of the health system, adaptation interventions, and evaluation, identification of barriers and facilitators for adaptation and decreasing the adverse health effects caused by the climate change, in Iran and perhaps beyond.

Towards developing a model for the evaluation of hospital disaster resilience: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Hospitals play a vital role in disaster stricken regions. The resilient hospitals will be able to provide essential services to affected people and it can mitigate the risk of injuries during and after disasters. This study aimed to obtain the indicators required for the evaluation of hospital resilience. METHODS: This systematic review was conducted in 2018. Through this systematic review, international electronic databases were investigated for the research studies published in English. The exclusion and inclusion criteria were determined to extract the hospital resilience indicators. These indicators will be used in order to develop a model to keep the system performance at an acceptable level during disasters. RESULTS: Out of 1794 research studies published until September 2018, 89 articles and guidelines with full text were surveyed. Thirty-two articles and guidelines were then selected and analyzed to collect the indicators related to hospital disaster resilience (HDR). The domains and the indicators were extracted from these selected research studies. The authors collected and categorized them into three domains and twenty seven subdomains. The three domains included constructive, infrastructural, and administrative resilience. The relevant indicators were designed for each subdomain to assess HDR. CONCLUSION: Since diverse indicators affect hospital resilience, other studies should be conducted to propose some models or tools to quantify the hospital resilience in different countries and scopes with an all hazards approach.

Correction to: Conceptual model of managing health care volunteers in disasters: a mixed method study.

In the original publication of this article [1], the percent sign at the first row of the Table 2 needs to be deleted. The updated Table 2 is shown below.

Conceptual model of managing health care volunteers in disasters: a mixed method study.

BACKGROUND: Shortage of specialized healthcare volunteers is a major challenge during disasters and one solution could be pre-identified healthcare volunteers. This study aimed to develop a conceptual model of managing Iranian healthcare volunteers in disasters. METHODS: This mixed method study was designed in two phases. A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with 22 health professionals and key informant. The interviews were analyzed by framework analysis. In the second phase, concepts derived from the first step were evaluated in a two round Delphi study by an expert panel comprised of 42 experts. RESULTS: Two themes and eight subthemes were identified based on the results of the first phase. The theme of background requirements included three sub-themes of laws and regulations, NGOs and socio-cultural factors. The second theme was called operational requirements which included six subthemes of preparedness, response, retention, relocation, terminating and follow-up. According to the results of the Delphi study, all of the concepts were confirmed. CONCLUSION: In addition to the need for supportive legal framework and building the culture of volunteering, it seems it is crucial to identify and prepare the health care volunteers in the preparedness phase and assign them appropriately in the response phase. Furthermore, the necessary measures should be prioritized to enhance volunteers' retention rate and motivation. Plans should also be implemented for volunteers' termination and volunteers' physical and mental health follow up after their mission.

Prevalence of intimate partner violence and reproductive health outcomes among Afghan refugee women in Iran.

Refugee women are at high risk of experiencing high level of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and its negative impacts. We conducted a cross-sectional population-based household survey with refugees in a settlement in the city of Semnan, Iran, from 2016 to 2017. Afghan refugee women (n = 188) with ages between 15 and 49 years were recruited for the survey. Overall, about 79.8% of the participants reported to have experienced a form of IPV in the past 12 months. IPV exposure is associated with a negative reproductive health outcome. The high prevalence of IPV found among refugee women in the present research and its strong links with poor reproductive health outcomes, underline the urgent need for the development and testing of appropriate interventions in refugee settlements.

Assessing human vulnerability in industrial chemical accidents: a qualitative and quantitative methodological approach.

Iran as a developing country is experiencing the industrialization process quickly and is thus exposed to different industrial hazards mostly derived from chemicals. In the light of this problem, this study estimated the human vulnerability in chemical accidents using the software simulation of accidental chlorine gas releases. A mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) study carried out in 4 phases during 2015-2017 in Ray County, Tehran Province. It included a systematic literature review, software simulation, Fuzzy Delphi Analytical Hierarchy Process (FDAHP) hierarchy process study, and creating a reliable tool for purpose of this study in at-risk areas. The valuable finding indicated that decreasing the human vulnerability depends on both social and physical characteristics of area and even the social vulnerability indicators have more important role when compared with the physical vulnerability indicators. The statistical analysis revealed that the human vulnerability has the significant relationship with factors such as type of living place (rural or urban) areas, nationality, economic situation of households, the distance between housing and the nearest exit to main road, health centers, and manufacturing or storing chemical plants (P value < 0.01). The result also showed that the area under study is vulnerable from average to very high, both in its physical and social domains, against industrial chemical accidents. Additional comparative studies are needed to develop and generalize the appropriate set of indicators of human vulnerability to human induced disasters in Iran.

Factors affecting the exposure, vulnerability and emergency medical service capacity for victims of road traffic incidents in Kampala Metropolitan Area: a Delphi study.

BACKGROUND: The Kampala Metropolitan Area (KMA) is the fastest developing region in Uganda. Over recent years, this has placed exponential demand on the road sector, which consequently has contributed to rapid growth in motorized vehicles which, predisposes the region to a high risk of road traffic incidents (RTIs). A number of concerted road safety and post-crash management measures to respond to RTIs in the KMA in particular and Uganda as a whole have been undertaken. However, there is a need to greatly improve the measures by better identifying the factors influencing the exposure, vulnerability and emergency medical service (EMS) capacity for RTI victims. The present study seeks to investigate and reveal these factors. METHODS: A Delphi technique employing a questionnaire and involving a multidisciplinary panel of experts was used in three rounds. RESULTS: The ten (10) most important factors affecting the exposure, vulnerability and EMS capacity for victims of RTIs in the KMA were identified. Socio-cultural, infrastructure and road safety aspects were the factors most identified as affecting the exposure and vulnerability. The absence of a national EMS policy and post-crash care system, as well as the fact that many victims lack health insurance, were noted to be the factors adversely affecting the EMS capacity. CONCLUSIONS: There exists is a real need to substantially reduce the burden of RTIs in KMA, with ultimate goal of saving lives that are being lost needlessly and reducing the impact of injuries and trauma and the economic losses associated with it. This study offers insights into the causes of RTIs and the most appropriate ways of responding to them especially with the establishment and empowerment of predefined and structured EMS systems.

Weaknesses and capacities affecting the Prehospital emergency care for victims of road traffic incidents in the greater Kampala metropolitan area: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Pre-hospital emergency care is a vital and integral component of health systems particularly in the resource constrained countries like Uganda. It can help to minimize deaths, injuries, morbidities, disabilities and trauma caused by the road traffic incidents (RTIs). This study identifies the weaknesses and capacities affecting the pre-hospital emergency care for the victims of RTIs in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the GKMA using a three-part structured questionnaire. Data related to the demographics, nature of RTIs and victims' pre-hospital experience and existing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) were collected from victims and EMS specialists in 3 hospitals and 5 EMS institutions respectively. Data was descriptively analyzed, and after the principal component analysis was employed to identify the most influential weaknesses and capacities affecting the pre-hospital emergency care for the victims of RTI in the GKMA. RESULTS: From 459 RTI victims (74.7% males and 25.3% females) and 23 EMS specialists (91.3% males and 8.7% females) who participated in the study between May and June 2016, 4 and 5 key weaknesses and capacities respectively were identified to affect the pre-hospital emergency care for RTI victims in the GKMA. Although some strengths exist like ambulance facilitation, EMS structuring, coordination and others), the key weaknesses affecting the pre-hospital care for victims were noted to relate to absence of predefined EMS systems particularly in the GKMA and Uganda as a whole. They were identified to involve poor quality first aid treatment; insufficient skills/training of the first responders; inadequate EMS resources; and avoidable delays to respond and transport RTI victims to medical facilities. CONCLUSIONS: Though some strengths exist, the weaknesses affecting prehospital care for RTI victims primarily emanate from the absence of predefined and well-organized EMS systems in the GKMA and Uganda as a whole.

Incidence of cancer in Iranian sulfur mustard exposed veterans: a long-term follow-up cohort study.

INTRODUCTION: It is estimated that during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, over 100,000 Iranians (military or civilian) were exposed to sulfur mustard (SM), and a considerable proportion of them are still suffering with long-term consequences of exposure. The aim of the present article is to address carcinogenesis of SM following these acute exposures. METHODS: Using a cohort study, we estimated and compared the incidence rates of malignant disorders in 7,570 veterans exposed to SM and 7,595 unexposed comrades in a 25-year follow-up period. We also determined the hazard ratio of cancer occurrence for SM exposure during the follow-up period. RESULTS: Cancer incidence was significantly increased with exposure to SM. The incidence rate ratio of cancer for SM exposure was 1.81 (95 % CI 1.27-2.56), and the age-adjusted incidence rate ratio was 1.64 (95 % CI 1.15-2.34).The hazard ratio of cancer was 2.02 (95 % CI 1.41-2.88). CONCLUSION: Present study suggests carcinogenesis of SM following acute exposure during war. With respect to this finding, it is reasonable to improve care programs such as routine screening schemes for exposed veterans.

Iran's disaster risk: now is the time for community-based public health preparedness.

The Bandar Bushehr, Iran earthquake of April 9, 2013 gravely illustrates how disaster-prone areas of the world are compounding their risk of disaster and major public health emergencies when there is a geographical convergence of natural and technological hazards. Scientists must emphasize to policy makers that ever-increasing regional industrialization and the broader introduction of nuclear facilities, especially in the Middle East, must parallel sound prevention and community-level public health preparedness planning.

Development and Psychometric Properties of Decision-Making Scale for Emergency Hospital Evacuation in Disasters.

BACKGROUND: The evidence shows that the need for emergency evacuation in hospitals has arisen. Designing an emergency evacuation decision making tool increases the confidence of hospital managers in the decision made. Therefore, this study was aimed at the development, and the psychometric properties, of the decision-making scale for emergency hospital evacuation in disasters. METHODS: This study was done in 2 phases of qualitative study and literature review and designing and psychometric properties of the instrument. After development of the primary item pool, the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were evaluated. In this regard, face and content validity, internal consistency (Alpha's Cronbach), reliability (ICC), and stability were assessed. RESULTS: In the validity stage of the instrument, 4 items were removed. Also, 4 items were modified and 2 items were merged. The number of items was thus decreased to 64. After CVI calculation, 5 items were removed, 4 items were modified, and 2 items were merged. As a result of this, the number of items decreased to 58 items. The scale has good reliability and stability. CONCLUSION: It seems that the instrument could be useful in decision-making for emergency hospital evacuation in disasters.

Mortality Risk Related to Heatwaves in Dezful City, Southwest of Iran.

Background: We aimed to evaluate the impact of heatwaves on daily deaths due to non-accidental, cardiovascular and respiratory causes in the city of Dezful in Iran from 2013 to 2019. Method: We collected daily ambient temperature and mortality and defined 2 types of heatwaves by combining daily temperature ⩾90th in each month of the study period or since 30 years with duration ⩾2 and 3 days. We used a distributed lag non-linear model to study the association between each type of heatwave definition, and deaths due to non-accidental, cardiovascular and respiratory causes with lags up to 13 days. Results: There was no discernible correlation in this area, despite the fact that heatwaves raised the risk of death from cardiovascular causes and lowered the risk from respiratory causes. On the other hand, the risk of total non-accidental mortality on days with the heatwaves is significantly higher than normal days. In main effects, the heatwaves have a significant relationship with the risk of total non-accidental mortality (in the first heatwave definition, Cumulative Excess Risk (CER) in lag0-2 was 10.4 and in second heatwave definition, CER values in lag0, 0-2, and 0-6 were 12.4, 29.2, and 38.8 respectively). Also, in added effects, heatwaves have a significant relationship with the risk of total non-accidental mortality (in the first heatwave definition, CER in lag0 and 0-2 were 1.79 and 4.11 and in the second heatwave definition, CER values in lag0, 0-2, and 0-6 were 7.76, 18.35 and 24.87 respectively). In addition, heatwaves appeared to contribute to a cumulative excess risk of non-accidental death among the male group as well as the older adults. Conclusion: However, the results showed that heatwaves could have detrimental effects on health, even in populations accustomed to the extreme heat. Therefore, early warning systems which monitor heatwaves should provide the necessary warnings to the population, especially the most vulnerable groups.

Climate adaptive hospital: A systematic review of determinants and actions.

Introduction: Climate change is among the most renowned concerns of the current century, endangering the lives of millions of people worldwide. To comply with the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), hospitals should be on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although hospitals contribute to climate change by emitting greenhouse gases, they are also affected by the health consequences of climate change. Despite all the guidance provided, hospitals need more radical measures to confront climate change. The current study was carried out to examine the components of hospitals' adaptation to climate change and to review measures to confront climate change in hospitals. Method: This systematic review was designed and carried out in 2020. The required information was collected from international electronic databases including Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Google Scholar. Moreover, Iranian datasets such as Scientific Database (SID), Irandoc, Magiran, and IranMedex were reviewed. No restriction was considered in the methodology of the study. For the relevant thesis, the ProQuest database was also explored. The related sources were examined and the Snowball method was applied to find additional related studies. The research team also reviewed other accessible electronic resources, such as international guidelines and academic websites. The checklist of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI, 2017) was employed in order to evaluate the quality of the included papers. The studies published until June1, 2020, were included in the study. Results: Of 11,680 published documents in the initial search, the full-texts of 140 were read after evaluating the titles and abstracts, of which 114 were excluded due to lack of sufficient information related to countermeasures in hospitals. Finally, the full-texts of 26 studies were reviewed to extract the required components. Two strategies were found, including climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation, with 13 components including water, wastewater, energy, waste, green buildings, food, transportation, green purchasing policy, medicines, chemicals and toxins, technology, sustainable care models, and leadership in hospitals were identified as affecting these measures and strategies. Conclusion: Considering the significance of climate change and strategies to confront it as one of the current challenges and priorities in the world, it is necessary to develop a framework and model to reduce the effects of climate change and adapt to climate changes in hospitals and other health centers. The identification and classification of the measures and components, influencing hospital adaptability and solutions for reducing the climate change impacts could be the first stage in developing this strategy. This is because it is impossible to create this framework without identifying these factors and their mutual impacts at the first. In the present study, through a systematic review using a comprehensive approach, the related components were explored and divided into two categories, including measures to reduce the effects and measures to adapt to climate change. The results of this study can be useful in developing a comprehensive action model to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt hospitals to climate change.

Scale Development and Psychometric Evaluation of a Questionnaire for Measuring the Risk Factors for Death in Floods.

Purpose: Determination of the causes of flood-related deaths is the precondition for effective interventions aimed at the reduction of such deaths. There is a gap in the design and the development of a valid and reliable instrument for measuring underlying factors of death in the flood. Methods: This study was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, item pool generation and questionnaire design were carried out through systematic review of literature and qualitative study. the initial questionnaire was divided into two parts of objective and subjective factors. In the second phase, the psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire included face, content, and construct validity in the subjective part. The reliability was also evaluated by calculating test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used for the data collected from 369 individuals in the flood-affected communities experiencing flood deaths. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 23. Results: In the EFA, 33 items and seven dimensions were extracted that explained 57.82% of the variance of influential factors in flood death, including the cognition of the flood (four items), general knowledge (four items), public beliefs (four items), risk perception (nine items), attitude (five items), prevention (five items), and social norms (two items). The internal consistency of the instrument using Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.92. Finally, in order to perform the stability test, the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for all questions. This was above .05 and acceptable. Conclusions: According to the results, the factors affecting flood death questionnaire (FAFDQ) could be used to make decisions, identify groups at risk of flood-related deaths, and implement flood-related death-reduction interventions. Indeed, these measures have led to the development of a comprehensive and reliable questionnaire for measuring the factors affecting flood deaths.