Background: Isfahan healthy heart program (IHHP), a six year, action-oriented, comprehensive and integrated community-based demonstration study, was launched late in 1999 to address the ongoing epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their major risk factors in Iran. It is a quasi-experimental trial that includes a reference area and several levels of evaluation including process, impact and outcome evaluations. IHHP involves individual, community and environmental changes to support health behavior modification. Objectives: To describe the IHHP evaluation design and to assess the extent to which the program has attained its short-term impacts. Methods: The IHHP evaluation includes four annual independent sample surveys in four specific sub-groups (adults, adolescents, health professionals and individuals at high risk for NCD) in both intervention and reference areas. In addition a sixyear cohort study of persons aged P35 years in both areas measures impact on behaviors at the individual level and assesses the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. The WHO STEPwise risk factor surveillance questionnaires were used to conduct the cross sectional surveys, which evaluate the impacts and outcomes

To evaluate discriminant validity, reliability, internal consistency, and dimensional structure of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) in a heterogeneous Iranian population. A clustered randomized sample of 2,956 healthy with 2,936 unhealthy rural and urban inhabitants aged 30 and above from two dissimilar Iranian provinces during 2006 completed the Persian version of the WHOQOL-BREF. We performed descriptive and analytical analysis including t-student, correlation matrix, Cronbach's Alpha, and factor analysis with principal components method and Varimax rotation with SPSS.15. The mean age of the participants was 42.2 +/- 12.1 years and the mean years of education was 9.3 +/- 3.8. The Iranian version of the WHOQOL-BREF domain scores demonstrated good internal consistency, criterion validity, and discriminant validity. The physical health domain contributed most in overall quality of life, while the environment domain made the least contribution. Factor analysis provided evidence for construct validity for four-factor model of the instrument. The scores of all domains discriminated between healthy persons and the patients. The WHOQOL-BREF has adequate psychometric properties and is, therefore, an adequate measure for assessing quality of life at the domain level in an adult Iranian population.