Introduction: The Persian Gulf War of 1991 started with invasion of Kuwait by Iraq and its military occupation. Authorized by the United Nations, 34 countries of the world attacked the Iraqi troops in Kuwait in January 1991 and forced them to retire. Iraqi forces set fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they retreated out and more than 600 oil wells were torched. Besides other consequences, this war caused a widespread bio-environmental pollution due to oil spill into the Persian Gulf and pollution of air and water by the chemicals and particulate matter from oil fire. This pollution affected the countries in the vicinage. It seemed that the provinces of Iran which were in the vicinity of the battlefields, as well as those provinces that where in the route of oil fire smoke movement were affected by direct and indirect impacts of this event. Assessment of mortality rates and pattern due to bio-environmental pollution from this war in population of southern Zagross provinces and their comparison with northern Zagross are presented in this article.

Methods: This study was performed in spring of 2003 in Bushehr province, southern districts of Khuzestan province, southern districts of Fars province, western districts of Hormozgan province, and Gachsaran district of Kohgiluyeh- Boyerahmad province, which had been in the route of smoke movement according to the available maps (as the case area), and Semnan and Markazi provinces (as the control areas). The estimated sample consisted of 6000 households with residence history of 13 years or more in the studied areas, and was selected through cluster sampling. Current status of all members and the mortality history in the previous 15 years was studied in each household.

Results: Eventually, 3246 households in the case area and 3110 households in the control areas were assessed. Number of individuals older than 9 year in these families was 14171 in the case area and 11329 in the control areas. Respectively, 48.5% and 47.5% of individuals in the case and control area samples were male. Mortality rate in children in case area have been higher than control area. Mortality rate in children younger than one in case and control area was 175.9 and 124.4 (per 10000) respectively.

Conclusion: Household mortality history assessment revealed that the mortality trend of the 1-9 year old children in the case area from 1990 to 2002 was significantly increasing as compared against the control areas. The 60-79 year age group had consistently higher mortality rates in the case area in comparison with the control areas.

Keywords: Mortality history, Bio-environmental pollution, Persian Gulf War, The Oil war.

  Hakim Research Journal 200710 (3): 54- 61.