title: Reproductive Health of Women in Rural Areas of East Azerbaijan - Iran, before and after Implementation of rural Family Physician Program: an Ecologic Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Implementation of rural family physician program in Iran in 2005 has been evaluated and shown that this program has been led to some improvements in health indicators. In this study, some reproductive health (RH) indicators were compared before and after implementation of this program in rural areas of East Azerbaijan, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this ecologic- time trend study, the data of 191075 births of rural women of East Azerbaijan from 2001 to 2010 was extracted from vital horoscope (ZIJ) and used for calculation of 20 important RH indicators. The paired t-test and correlation analysis wear used for data analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Some indicators such as adolescent marriage rate, adolescent birth and over 35 year olds birth rate were increased after rural family physician program implementation in 2005. Also stillbirth rate and unsafe delivery were decreased during this period. There was a significant correlation between increasing adolescent birth rate and increasing low birth weight deliveries (r= 0.911, P= 0.031) and also between increasing over 35 year olds birth rate and increasing neonatal mortality rate in term of prematurity and congenital malformations (r= 0.912, P= 0.031) after program implementation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Perinatal care and safe delivery even for pregnancies outside the typical child-bearing ages are promoting after implementation of rural family physician program in East Azerbaijan. Also decreasing unsafe delivery and stillbirth rate can be considered as achievements of running this program in this province.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Science, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahasti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alizadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Health system management, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Science, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jabbari Birami
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Science, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Siavash
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moradi
keywords: Birth rate; Infant mortality; Perinatal care; Physicians, Family; Reproductive health