Search

Background and aims: The diversity of health, safety and environmental issues (HSE) and limitations of the resources hinders response to all the research needs in the field of HSE. HSE promotion and policy making require research based on the real needs and problems of the society. Although, the budget allocated to the research is limited, this budget is not optimally utilized in present situation of Iran. Therefore, setting research priority in HSE is important to direct the flow of resources to the real needs of the society. This study aims to define research priorities in the field of HSE with the use of experts’ and other stakeholders’ opinions. Methods: The qualitative research method was used in this study. The proposed model of Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) was applied in five stages including stakeholder analysis, situation analysis, identifying research topics, scoring research priority using defined criteria and prioritizing researches based on maximum agreement. The first stage was stakeholder analysis, the centers, institutions, organizations and universities related to HSE field were identified through review of literature, investigating Iranian scientific journals and by asking the experts. Also, the contact information of 70 experts, professionals, and stakeholders who were members of health centers, institutions or universities in the field of HSE were collected. In the second stage, an extensive search was done on the literature and published scientific articles from 2014 to 2019 in google scholar. The articles were selected through investigating the title and abstract of the articles and then studying deeper into the texts. Also, the official websites of Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, Ministry of Industry, Mine and Commerce were examined. The third stage was to identify the research topics and occupational areas, which was done by using the classification of International Labor Organization and also through brain storming of the experts. The fourth stage was scoring the priority of researches in each occupational area and research topic based on criteria such as necessity of research, appropriateness of the research to the target population, feasibility of researches based on the available resources and the research outcome. Scoring was done in a panel discussion based on a Likert scale of 1 to 9 by experts; one represented the lowest and represented the highest priorities. The fifth step was to prioritize the researches based on mean score given by the experts. Results: Situation analysis of studies in the field of HSE from 2014 to 2019 in Iran showed that most studies have been conducted in industries. According to experts, in the field of health and environment, the highest research priority was given to agriculture, fisheries, and livestock, and the highest priority to safety was given to workers in industry and mines, construction and driving. Also, workers in medium and small scale constructions and workers in small and medium industries and mines had the highest priority in the ten research areas in health and safety. Agriculture, fisheries, husbandry and poultry had the highest priority in most of the ten research areas in environment. Among the three HSE domains, in the managerial and sales jobs, the research priority was given to occupational health research. Priority research in health care, industries and mines and construction, service, armed forces and driving related jobs were given to safety related researches. In agriculture, fisheries and husbandry, the priority of research was given to environmental issues and then to occupational health. In the area of occupational health, the highest priority in managerial occupations was given to the researches that assess impact of different program. In sales jobs, the highest priority was given to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In large scale industries and mines, the highest priority was given to the researches that are related to developing interventions or solutions, but in medium and small industries and mines, the highest priority was given to the researches that assess the impact of a program or intervention. In the field of medium and small-scale construction workers, the highest priority was given to the research area of qualitative or quantitative situation analysis and assessing the causes of a problem. In the service occupations, the highest priority was given to the research area of qualitative or quantitative situation analysis. In the military occupations, the highest priority was assigned to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In large scale agriculture, fisheries, husbandry and poultry industries, the highest priority was given to the research area of determining the trends of a situation or problem. In agriculture, fisheries, husbandry and poultry industries of medium and small industries, the highest priority was assigned to the field of evaluation of the impact of programs. In the driving jobs, higher priority was given to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In the area of occupational safety research, the highest priority in managerial occupations was given to the research domain of cost effectiveness or cost benefit analysis. In the health care occupations, the highest priority was given to Evaluation of the interventions. In sales jobs, the highest priority was given to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In the field of large-scale mining and industrial workers, the highest priority was given to research in developing new interventions or solutions. In the field of medium and small-scale industrial and mining workers, the highest priority was given to evaluation of the interventions. In the field of large industrial construction, the highest priority was given to determining the trends of a situation or problems and developing new interventions or solutions. In the service occupations, the highest priority was given to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In the military occupations, the highest priority was devoted to the research of developing new interventions or solutions and evaluation of the interventions. In agriculture, fisheries, poultry, and small and medium-sized industries, the highest priority was given to evaluation of the impact of programs. In the driving jobs, the highest priority was given to the research area of developing new interventions or solutions. In the area of environmental research, the highest priority in managerial occupations was given to determining the trends of a situation or problems and developing plans or strategies. In the health care jobs, the highest priority was given to the evaluation of the interventions. In sales jobs, the highest priority was given to the qualitative or quantitative situation analysis. The highest priority was given to developing new interventions or solutions for workers in large-scale industries and mines. For workers in the field of medium and small industries and mines, the highest priority was given to developing plans or strategies. The highest priority was given to developing plans or strategies for workers in the field of medium and small scale construction. In service jobs, the highest priority was given to qualitative or quantitative situation analysis. In military jobs, the highest priority was given to determining the trends of a situation or problems and evaluation of the interventions. In agriculture, fisheries, husbandry and poultry industries, the highest priority was given to qualitative or quantitative situation analysis and determining the trends of a situation of problems. In agriculture, fisheries, poultry, and small and medium-sized industries, the highest priority was given to evaluation of the interventions and evaluation of the impact of programs. In the driving jobs, the highest priority was given to the determining the trends of a situation or problem. Conclusion: Most studies in the field of HSE have been conducted in industry. It is required to expand the HSE research based on the priorities set out in this study.

Background: Of common scientometric indices is evaluating the performance and scientific collaboration of journals and organizations. Iran Occupational Health Journal belongs to Iran University of Medical Sciences and committed to providing scientific evidence for improving occupational health. Based on the importance of health at work, this study aimed to evaluate the Journal’s performance and scientific collaboration in the field. Methods: This is a scientometric study using both citation and content analyses. Complete enumeration survey method and Scimago data were used to collect all information about published articles between 2012 and 2017. Content analysis was performed to find about the articles’ dominant subject area. The data on the number of authors, the authorschr('39') organizational affiliation, the type of articles, and the affiliated centers with the most number of articles were reported. Data were analyzed using Excel 2016 software. Results: The Journal’s performance in various indices such as reducing the time between receive and accept of papers has had an improving trend for 6 consecutive years. The Journal has published mostly in subjects of ergonomics (59 articles) and then safety (52 articles). The Journal’s SJR in Scopus has had an increasing trend from 0.101 in 2012 to 0.220 in 2017. Conclusion: Based on the collected data and Scimago indices, the performance of Iran Occupational Health Journal has shown an improving trend over the studied years. The priorities of published subjects in the Journal are in agreement with the research priorities for occupational health in Iran. Thus, the Journal’s continuous improvement regarding examined criteria is highly expected.

Background and aims: Prioritizing research fields prevents wastage of budgets and increase efficacy of research. Paying attention to health of employees and workers is necessary for promoting health and sustainable development in the country. Therefore this study was conducted in order to determine the research priorities in the field of occupational health in Iran. Methods: In order to determine the research priorities in the field of occupational health the COHRED model was used. Data collection was done by review of literature, obtaining the views of experts (by interview and Delphi technique) and collecting statistics from relevant officials. Priority setting was done in two stages and based on Delphi technique. In this research out of 70 identified research centers, 22 participated in the study. Descriptive statistics including mean (SD) and frequency (percentage) was used to analysis the data. Results: Results of this study showed that musculoskeletal disorders and injuries had the highest research priority in Iran. The occupation of workers in mine and industries had the highest research priority. Also three indicators of equity in service provision, work security and healthy life style had the highest research priority among the social determinants of health for workers. Conclusion: In summary in this research it was attempted that research priorities be defined in different areas of research which can be used as a tool for decision makers in distribution of resources in the field of occupational health.

Background and aims: According to the progressive trend of contracting companies' activity in petrochemical industries, also the significant role of HSE in sustainable improvement, it seems that there is a need to have an appropriate plan for evaluation of Contractor s performance. The purposeofthisresearch is the assessment and evaluation of Contractor s HSE performance based onkey indicators inthepetrochemicalcompany. Methods : In this descriptive and cross-sectional study data was gathered using two types of questionnaires and checklist. Research population were includedfourteen contracting companies working in a petrochemical company. Sevenelements ofHSEmanagementsystemsaskey indicatorsandevaluationcriteriahavebeendeveloped.The averagepercentageofquestionsasthebenchmarkindex(less than50 %, 50 unfavorable ,70-75 % acceptable,75-90 % Good, 90-100 % favorable ) were considered . Collected data were analyzed by nonparametric methods with correlation and Kruskal-Wallistest . The percentage and average are used in descriptive statistics . Results: Our results revealed that all related performance criteria were implemented by more than70% of cases actually. Also about 90% of companies were in favorable, good and acceptablecondition. Kruskal-Wallistest resultsshowed thattheperformanceofcompanies in differentindicators (p=0.437) and alsobetweenthedifferentcompanies in allparameters there was no significant difference(p =0.423, p=1). Conclusion: Results showed that Contractors HSE performance based on key indicators in mostcompanies were in favorable condition and in limited numbers of them were good and acceptable . This relativelyfavorableconditioncan be resulted by the establishment of the HSEmanagementinPetrochemical Companyas well as contractors commitment to respect Client's HSE rules and regulations.