Study of the Avoidable Mortality in Iran: Kerman Province

BACKGROUND: Recognizing mortality pattern and observing its trend will help us in determining health priorities, allocating health resources and priorities in health section, eliminating main factors of premature deaths and carrying out epidemiological research. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research was to determine avoidable mortality in Kerman province. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was carried out longitudinal. A checklist was applied for data collection. Avoidable mortalities were examined in Kerman province between 2004 and 2010. Statistical universe of this research was all deaths registered in statistical unit of health deputy of Kerman University of Medical Sciences; they were all studied through a census method. Data analysis was carried out using descriptive and analytical test by SPSS18.0. RESULTS: Two thousand and one hundred –ninety seven deaths were examined. Of them, 210 deaths were unavoidable and 19987 were avoidable. In this study, most unavoidable deaths were due to pancreases cancer and ovary cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Relative high number of avoidable deaths indicates that performance of health system was not desirable in Kerman during the studied years. Examining trend of avoidable deaths showed that these mortalities are increasing although it is not significant nowadays. However, if this trend continues, it will be very alarming for health care authorities in this region.