Evaluation of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the all-cause, cause-specific mortality, YLL, and life expectancy in the first 2 years in an Iranian population-an ecological study.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic resulted in excess mortality and changed the trends of causes of death worldwide. In this study, we investigate the all-cause and cause-specific deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) compared to the baseline (2018-2020), considering age groups, gender, place of residence, and place of death in south Khorasan, east of Iran. Methods: The present ecological study was conducted using South Khorasan Province death certificate data during 2018-2022. The number of death and all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates (per 100,000 people) were calculated and compared based on age groups, place of residence, place of death, and gender before (2018-2020) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). We also calculated total and cause-specific years of life lost (YLL) to death and gender-specific life expectancy at birth. Results: A total of 7,766 deaths occurred from March 21, 2018, to March 20, 2020 (pre-pandemic) and 9,984 deaths from March 21, 2020, to March 20, 2022 (pandemic). The mean age at death increased by about 2 years during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mortality rate was significantly increased in the age groups 20 years and older. The most excess deaths were recorded in men, Aged more than 60 years, death at home, and the rural population. Mortality due to COVID-19 accounted for nearly 17% of deaths. The highest increase in mortality rate was observed due to endocrine and Cardiovascular diseases. Mortality rates due to the genitourinary system and Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period have decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The major causes of death during the pandemic were Cardiovascular diseases, COVID-19, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, accidents, and endocrine diseases in both sexes, in rural and urban areas. Years of life lost (YLL) increased by nearly 15.0%, which was mostly due to COVID-19, life expectancy at birth has steadily declined from 2018 to202 for both genders (from 78.4 to 75). Conclusion: In this study, we found that All-cause mortality increased by 25.5% during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in men, older adult, Rural residents, and those who died at home (outside the hospital). Considering that the most common causes of death during the COVID-19 pandemic are also non-communicable diseases. It is necessary to pay attention to non-communicable diseases even during the pandemic of a serious infectious disease like COVID-19. The years of life lost also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is necessary to pay attention to all age groups, especially the causes of death in young people. In most developing countries, the first cause of death of these groups is accidents.

Clinical utility of lipid ratios as potential predictors of metabolic syndrome among the elderly population: Birjand Longitudinal Aging Study (BLAS).

BACKGROUND: Elderly adults are at higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome (MetS). The present study aims to investigate the relationship between lipid ratios and MetS in the elderly population. METHODS: This study was conducted on elderly population of Birjand during 2018-2019. The data of this study was driven from Birjand Longitudinal Aging Study (BLAS). The participants were selected based on multistage stratified cluster sampling. Patients were categorized into quartiles according to the lipid ratios (TG/HDL-C, LDL-C/HDL-C, non-HDL/HDL-C), and the relationship between lipid ratio quartiles and MetS was determined by Logistic Regression using Odds Ratio. Finally, the optimal cut-off for each lipid ratio in MetS diagnosis was calculated according to the Area Under the Curve (AUC). RESULTS: This study included 1356 individuals, of whom 655 were men and 701 were women. In our study, the crude prevalence of MetS was 792 (58%), including 543 (77.5%) women and 249 (38%) men. Increasing trends were observed in quartiles of all lipid ratios for TC, LDL-C, TG, and DBP. TG/HDL was also the best lipid ratio to diagnose the MetS, based on NCEP ATP III criteria. One unit increased in level of TG/HDL resulted in 3.94 (OR: 3.94; 95%CI: 2.48-6.6) and 11.56 (OR: 11.56; 95%CI: 6.93-19.29) increasing risk of having MetS in quartile 3 and 4 compared to quartile 1, respectively. In men and women, the cutoff for TG/HDL was 3.5 and 3.0, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that the TG/HDL-C is superior to the LDL-C/HDL-C and the non-HDL /HDL-C to predict MetS among the elderly adults.

The effects of large-scale atmospheric flows on berylium-7 activity concentration in surface air.

Understanding the exchange mechanism between stratosphere and troposphere is one of the most important concerns of meteorologists and climatologists for decades. Different methods are being adopted to study those mechanisms. One of those methods is the study upon the tropospheric concentration of conserve or passive entities with stratospheric origin. One of those passive entities is (7)Be that is produced upon the incident of cosmic rays on light atmospheric nuclei in the stratosphere. The availability of 5 years observations of (7)Be concentration in surface air in Tehran (35 degrees 41(') N, 51 degrees 18(') E) encouraged us to investigate meteorological condition effect on the surface concentration of (7)Be. Also, the intention was to see if there was any intrusion of stratospheric air into the troposphere at the time of high surface concentration of (7)Be and scavenging mechanism when the concentration was low. During the course of this study, it has been found that (7)Be concentration is high whenever there is a jet stream over Tehran. Since high-level jet streams normally form near tropopause folding, it could be interpreted as a sign of the intrusion of stratospheric air into the troposphere. It was also found that high concentration of (7)Be in the Tehran surface air in summer is associated with an upper ridge on 500 hPa surface located east of the city, and low concentration in winter is associated with an upper trough. The latter normally is seen whenever there is precipitation that suggests wet scavenging could be the reason for that observed low concentration.

Analysis of gross alpha, gross beta activities and beryllium-7 concentrations in surface air: their variations and statistical prediction model.

Measurement of gross alpha, gross beta activities and cosmogenic beryllium-7 (7Be) concentrations were made both daily and weekly during the years 2001--2004 from samples of atmospheric aerosols filtered from the air at Tehran Nuclear Research Center (35 41' N) and Zahedan (28 29' N). Weekly aerosol samples collected with the high-volume air samplers on cellulose filters were used to determine the 7Be contents of samples, using a semiconductor gamma spectrometer. Airborne dust samples were collected daily on fiber glass filters and used to determine the gross beta and gross alpha activities with automatic beta analyzer and a ZnS(Ag) counter, respectively. In this work, the concentration and meteorological data were used to determine models for gross alpha, gross beta and 7Be. The air concentrations of gross beta and gross alpha activities and 7Be concentrations displayed lognormal distributions during the study period. Both beta and 7Be have maximum activity concentrations during warm mid-year months.