Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Morbidity and mortality from technological disasters in Iran: A narrative review

Authors

. Hamid Jafari
. Ahmad Jonidi Jafari 1
. Mahmoud Nekoei‑Moghadam 2
. Salime Goharinezhad 3

1 Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Hygiene, Research Center for Environmental Health Technology, Iran University of Medical Sciences

2 Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

3 Education Development Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran,Iran

Abstract
Iran as a developing country is at risk of vulnerability to technological disasters. These types of
disasters occur frequently in last years and affected thousands of lives. Technological disasters
in Iran cause thousands of deaths, thousands of injuries, and millions of dollars’ economic loss in
recent years. We searched suitable keywords in national and international disaster databases for
gathering epidemiological data in these disasters in Iran. In addition, we searched suitable keywords
in scientific databases including Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Scientific
Information Database, Magiran, and Irandoc. After screening, only 19 articles discussed challenges
of technological disasters in the country. Road accidents, explosions and fires, mine accidents, and
railway accidents are common events in the country. After 2015, these types of disaster cause 823
deaths and injuries. Experience of response to these disasters showed that technological disaster
management in the country faces too many challenges including comprehensive and prospective
programs, weakness of necessary infrastructure for urban management, weakness in group work
and interorganizational coordination, lack of coherent involvement of people and nongovernmental
organizations, lack of information coverage during the disaster, volunteers in police service presence
at scene, and normalization of these events. Due to interorganizational nature of mitigation in
technological disasters, it must be developed coordination between various organizations to mitigate
these types of disasters.

Keywords

Accidents
epidemiology
Iran
mortality
technological disasters
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 9, Issue 7
July 2019
Pages 1-6

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