ABSTRACT
Natural disasters are always one of the human health threatening factors in the worldwide which Iran provinces including East Azerbaijan are involved. This study aimed to assess awareness of environmental health experts in East Azerbaijan province about health problems during natural disasters. In this descriptive study, 144 environmental health experts were randomly selected and studied in East Azerbaijan province [including 52.1% from all Townships and 47.9% from Tabriz city]. Questionnaires distributed among experts after validation by specialists; then the collected data was analyzed using SPSS. According to the results, significant differences were found between the awareness of participants [45/5% experts and 53/5% technician of environmental health] in Tabriz and other Townships of province. Significant differences were also found between the level of education and workplace [P /= 0/05]. The results indicate that the effect of education on experts' awareness of environmental health in natural disasters. So, some measures should be taken such as: to promote employees scientific level by training courses or retraining programs; to provide facilities in order to continue their education and recruiting new experts. Thus, these measures can reduce injuries or mortality rate due to lack of awareness of the health issues in natural disasters
ABSTRACT
Macroprolactinemia is one of the important and benign causes of hyperprolactinemia. Recognition of this benign condition can avoid unnecessary diagnostic procedures and inappropriate treatments. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of polyethylene glycol [PEG] precipitation test in determining the macroprolactinemia in hyperprolactinemic subjects using Elecsys 2010 immunoanalyser. We performed the PEG precipitation test in 188 hyperprolactinemic subjects with prolactin levels >750 mlU/L. The results of PEG test were expressed as prolactin recovery [R% value].We also performed PEG precipitation test on 100 sera from normoprolactinemic subjects for determination of PEG precipitation test reference interval. According to the recovery percentage [R%] interpretative criterion, the prevalence of macroprolactinemia was 17% [R% <40%], whereas 80.8% of subjects showed a true hyperprolactinemia [R% >60%].We also estimated the prevalence of macroprolactinemia by comparing the PEG test results with PEG test reference interval. By this new interpretative method, the prevalence of macroprolactinemia was 18.6%, while 81.4% showed true hyperprolactinemia. We recommend PEG precipitation test as a simple, convenient and rapid screening method for macroprolactinemia, specially for users of Elecsys 2010 immunoanalysers, because this system has high reactivity to macroprolactin