title: Establishment of Health Clinics as Mass Screening and Referral Systems for Chronic Non-communicable Diseases in Primary Health Care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study aimed to establish a comprehensive screening and referral system for chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCD) in the routine primary health care, and to determine the prevalence of diabetes, pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and dyslipidemia in adult population invited by public announcement to the Health clinics in Isfahan, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  This survey was conducted from March 2010, and the current paper presents data obtained until November 2011. To provide health services for prevention and control of CNCDs, with priority of type2 diabetes mellitus, Health clinics were established in different parts of Isfahan city with a population of approximately 2,100,000 in Iran. The general populations aged 30 years and above were invited to the Health clinics by public announcement.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 198972 participants were screened. The mean age of participants was 47.8 years (48.5 men, 47.3 women), with a range of 1 to 95 years old and standard deviation of 12.3 years (12.7 men, 12.1 women). Overall, 22% of participants had impaired fasting glucose, 25% had hypercholesterolemia, 31% had hypertriglyceridemia, and 20% had metabolic syndrome.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The high prevalence of dysglycemia and diabetes in our survey may serve as confirmatory evidence about the importance of mass screening and early diagnosis of CNCDs' risk factors. Our model of establishing Health clinics, as a comprehensive referral system in the routine primary health care can be adopted by Middle Eastern countries, where CNCDs notably diabetes are an emerging health problem.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health, Isfahan Provincial Health Office, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
authors.forename: Kamal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Heidari
authors.forename: Sayyed Ali
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Sajjadi
authors.forename: Rezvaneh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hadian
authors.forename: Somayeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hadi
authors.forename: Ramesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hosseinkhani
authors.forename: Soudabeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Amini
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kiani
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ajami
authors.forename: Reza
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fadaei
authors.forename: Anahita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shahriari
authors.forename: Kasra
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Keramatian