Research in Medicine

"Tehran prospective survey of lipid and sugar" is the first biggest epidemiologic study in Iran, conducted with the aim of determining the etiologic factors of cardiovascular disease in Tehran urban residents. This study, covering a vast majority of the population, was begun with society recognition and just like other prospective studies has paid more attention to social relations.

Familiarizing the society with research objectives and encouraging them to active participation were among the most determining factors observed exactly in this survey. This was entrusted to the "group of social relations", composed of social workers and health assistants of East Health Services System. They have face to face communication with the studied society and have covered about 17000 cases within the first two years in Tehran 13^th District. Despite being aware of weak points of therapeutic and health services and also employing previous experiments, we have faced numerous unpredictable problems. However, resolving these problems has brought us valuable experiences, steering us towards facilitated next steps. In this study we have taking advantage of voluntary "health assistants" and 3 Health Services Centers supervised by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Removing opposing tendencies towards public health services, spending adequate time for explaining and conducting the research, achieving strategies for cultural beliefs' concurrence, and finding ways of population excitement for participation were other activities performed in our study.