The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread rapidly worldwide and led to the deaths of thousands of people. To date, there is not any vaccine or specific antiviral medicine that can prevent or treat this virus. This caused panic among people who try their best to prevent being infected. In Iran, methanol poisoning was reported and led to the death of hundreds of people in several provinces. The incident occurred after a rumor circulated in the country that drinking alcohol (ethanol) can cure or prevent being infected by COVID-19.

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Background: With the increasing number of elderly people in the world, usage of concepts and terminology related to this phenomenon has substantially increased. One concept in this context is successful aging. The purpose of the present study is to extract and introduce a common concept to be used in studies on measuring successful aging. Methods: This is a review study. First, by searching the databases of Magiran, Noormags, Medlib, Irandoc, Iranmedex, Barakat Knowledge Network System, Civilica, SID, ISI Web Of Science, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct and search engines, Google Scholar and Elmnet as well as using standard keywords such as elder, elderly, aging, and successful aging, all related published articles during the period 1995 to 2017 were retrieved. A total of 3417 documents were retrieved. By removing 3390 unrelated, duplicate and unusable documents, 27 articles were included in the study after quality control. Results: The findings of the study were categorized in three areas: "defining successful aging by focusing on dimensions", "successful aging principles" and "factors influencing successful aging". Reviewing various studies, we found that the definition of successful aging deals with cognitive action, perception, control, life satisfaction, and ethics. Successful aging is also defined as having inner feelings of happiness and satisfaction with life for the present and the past. Sometimes successful aging is also considered to be survival with health. Conclusion: Health care professionals as community health supporters can use the results from the present study for providing the grounds for successful aging. Then, they can use the designed successful aging program for preserving and promoting active and healthy aging for every elderly person in old age.

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BackgroundOlder adults are more vulnerable to health risks than younger people and may get exposed to various dangers, including elder abuse. This study aimed to design and implement an empowerment educational intervention to prevent elder abuse.MethodsThis parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2014–2016 for 18 months on 464 older adults aged above 60 years who visited health houses of 22 municipalities in Tehran. Data were collected using standard questionnaires, including the Elder Abuse-Knowledge Questionnaire, Health-Promoting Behavior Questionnaire, Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II, Barriers to Healthy Lifestyle, Perceived Social Support, Perceived Self-Efficacy, Loneliness Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and the SCARED (stress, coping, argument, resources, events, and dependence) tool. The intervention was done in twenty 45- to 60-minute training sessions over 6 months. Data analysis were performed using χ2 tests, multiple linear and logistic regression, and structural equation modeling (SEM).ResultsThe frequency of knowledge of elder abuse, self-efficacy, social support and health promoting lifestyle before the intervention was similar in the two groups. However, the frequency of high knowledge of elder abuse (94.8% in the intervention group and 46.6% in the control group), high self-efficacy (82.8% and 7.8%, respectively), high social support (97.0% and 10.3%, respectively) and high health promoting lifestyle (97.0% and 10.3%, respectively) was significantly higher (P<0.001) and the frequency of elder abuse risk (28.0% and 49.6%, respectively) was significantly less in the intervention group after the intervention. SEM standardized beta (Sβ) showed that the intervention had the highest impact on increase social support (Sβ=0.80, β=48.64, SE=1.70, P<0.05), self-efficacy (Sβ=0.76, β=13.32, SE=0.52, P<0.05) and health promoting behaviors (Sβ=0.48, β=33.08, SE=2.26, P<0.05), respectively. The effect of the intervention on decrease of elder abuse risk was indirect and significant (Sβ=−0.406, β=−0.340, SE=0.03, P<0.05), and through social support, self-efficacy, and health promoting behaviors.ConclusionEducational interventions can be effective in preventing elder abuse.

To the Editor, Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory disease that first emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019. 1 It spread rapidly to many countries in the world, and the World Health Organization (WHO; Geneva, Switzerland) declared this virus a global pan

Background: Dust storms and their impacts on health are becoming a major public health issue. The current study examines the health impacts of dust storms around the world to provide an overview of this issue. Method: In this systematic review, 140 relevant and authoritative English articles on the impacts of dust storms on health (up to September 2019) were identified and extracted from 28 968 articles using valid keywords from various databases (PubMed, WOS, EMBASE, and Scopus) and multiple screening steps. Selected papers were then qualitatively examined and evaluated. Evaluation results were summarized using an Extraction Table. Results: The results of the study are divided into two parts: short and long-term impacts of dust storms. Short-term impacts include mortality, visitation, emergency medical dispatch, hospitalization, increased symptoms, and decreased pulmonary function. Long-term impacts include pregnancy, cognitive difficulties, and birth problems. Additionally, this study shows that dust storms have devastating impacts on health, affecting cardiovascular and respiratory health in particular. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that dust storms have significant public health impacts. More attention should be paid to these natural hazards to prepare for, respond to, and mitigate these hazardous events to reduce their negative health impacts. Registration: PROSPERO registration number CRD42018093325

Objectives: There are few studies about the association between breathing polluted air and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cardiac death in the Middle East. This study has aimed to investigate the relation between air pollutants and cardio vascular mortality (based on the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th revision) in Ahvaz. Material and Methods: In this ecological study, the data about cardiovascular disease mortality and air pollutants from March 2008 until March 2015 was inquired from the Ahvaz City Authority and the Khuzestan Province Environmental Protec tion Agency. The quasi-Poisson, second degree polynomial constrained, distributed lag model; using single and cumulative lag structures, adjusted by trend, seasonality, temperature, relative humidity, weekdays and holidays was used for the data analysis purposes. Results: Findings indicated a direct significant relation between an interquartile range (IQR) increase in ozone and cardiovascular deaths among men after 3 days' lag. There was also a significant relation between an IQR increase in particulate matter below 10 μm and cardiovascular deaths for all people, over 60 years old and under 18 years old after 3 and 13 days' lags. There was a significant relation between an IQR increase in nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide, and cardiovascular deaths in the case of under 18-year-olds (in the lag 11) and over 60-year-olds (in the lag 9), respectively. We finally found a significant association between an IQR increase in sulfur dioxide and cardiovascular deaths in the case of men, under 18-year-olds and from 18-to 60-year-olds in the lag 9, 0, and 11, respectively (p-values < 0.05). Conclusions: It appears that air pollution is signifi cantly associated with cardiovascular deaths in Ahvaz City. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2018;31(4)