Geographic Health’s Way to Prevention of Diseases: A Case Study on Arsenic Spatial Dispersion and Dyspnea in Isfahan Province

Abstract

Background: As geographic science discusses the analysis of environment, human beings and their mutual relations, thus the field of medical geography consists of being inspired from the relations between these two factors, analyzing environmental factors, their identification them and the state of their effects on human health, as well as determining the location of these factors. Some hazards that threat human health are the results of environmental factors and the relevant pollutions. Some important categories of diseases including (Shortness of Breath or, Dyspnea) have considerable differences in various places, as observed in their spatial prevalence and distribution maps.

Methods: The record of patients with Dyspnea diseases were prepared for this descriptive research, for the period of 2009-2011, from the provincial health center, with the questionnaires were excluded patients with a family history of disease and the spatial diagram for disease prevalence was drawn according to the prepared data. The arsenic geographical distribution diagram in Isfahan province was also prepared and then the relation between an element of Arsenic in the province and the Dyspnea diseases were analyzed.

Results: The analyses showed that the highest rate of Arsenic is entered the soil via fertilizers to come eventually into the food cycle of humans. By analyzing the amount of used fertilizers in Isfahan province and the dispersion diagram of Arsenic in Isfahan province, it was found that the highest frequency of Arsenic is in places having agricultural base. The spatial dispersion of Dyspnea diseases also showed that the spreading of Dyspnea diseases is greater in places with higher scale of Arsenic.

Conclusions: This study is a logical justifi cation between the two diagrams to confi rm the hypothesis regarding the effect of arsenic on Dyspnea.

Keywords: Arsenic, dyspnea, Isfahan province, medical geography, spatial dispersion