An Assessment of the Social Health of the Residents of Lamerd, Fars Province in 2019

Abstract

Introduction: Health is considered of utmost importance and can be assessed from various aspects. The social health assessment can be a good basis for planning to improve the general health of the target community. The present study was conducted to investigate the social health of Lamerd residents, a small town in Fars Province. Methods: The present study is descriptive and uses a researcher-made questionnaire as the instrument. The research population of the study is 60319 Lamerd residents over 20 years old in 2016, and a total of 382 people were selected through a cluster and stratified sampling method. To describe social health, central tendency indices, such as mean and the measure dispersion, standard deviation, were used in SPSS version 24. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: In this study, 382 people were studied. Out of this number, 89 percent were male, and 66 percent were single. Most of the respondents belonged to the 30-35 age bracket. The findings showed that the mean social health (3.03) was at an average level. Among the evaluated dimensions of social health, the economic dimension was favorable (3.09). The social trust component was assessed on the social capital index, showing that the institutional trust was low (2.14). On the contrary, interpersonal trust was at a high level (3.14). The social harms indicator was at a high level (3.07), yet physical and mental health were rated as average and low, respectively. Considering life expectancy, the sampling assumed that the life span of the residents has shortened, and on education and literacy, their responses proved a moderately high tendency towards academic promotion and towards studying technical majors. The environmental condition indicator was also rated as unfavorable, and noise, air, and marine pollution were high. Conclusion: Considering the importance of social health, investigating its different aspects through panel designs can be an appropriate analytical instrument for sociologists, pathologists, and health planners to move from unfavorable conditions to an optimal state.