Role of Iranian nurses in public health

Iran is one of the most populous countries in the Middle East. Medical sector's market value was almost US $310 billion in 2007. Fifty per cent of Iran’s population is currently under 20 years old. Soon they will be old enough to start new families, which will boost the population growth rate and subsequently the need for public health infrastructures and services. Iran extended public health preventive services through the establishment of an extensive Primary Health Care network in recent decades. In other hand, the major component for nursing curriculum in Iran is Public health courses. So, it is clear that use of nurses in community based health care services can improve public health and therefore nurses should be embedded in national health system as accessible and qualified health care practitioner. However, Iranian nurses (around 70000) rather work in hospital settings and their role in Iranian health system limited to acute care. Hence, more efforts are needed to change policy makers’ thoughts in this issue. This article talks about existing and upcoming nurses roles in Iranian health care system.