• Elaheh Talebi-Ghane, Salman Khazaei, Fatemeh Hadavand Siri, Delniya Ahmadi, and Ahmad Mehri.
• Modeling of Noncommunicable Diseases Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2023 Mar 1; 26 (3): 147155147-155.

BackgroundDetecting the correlation of conflict rate within provinces over time provides a better understanding for health policymakers in identifying potential causes. The purpose of this study was to assess the trend of conflict rate in 31 provinces of Iran using the growth mixture model (GMM).MethodsThis ecologic study was conducted based on the data obtained from the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization (ILMO) by gender and provinces between March 21, 2014 and March 21, 2020. First, the 7-year cumulative incidence rates were described; second, the trend of conflict rate was modeled by a linear mixed-effects model according to gender and overall; finally, distinct classes of provinces with similar conflict trends in seven years were identified using the GMM. The significance level was considered less than 0.05.ResultsAmong provinces, Ardebil and Sistan Baluchistan had the highest and the lowest 7-year conflict incidence rates (95% CI) with 66.6 (52.38, 84.67) and 20.79 (13.53, 31.95) per 100000, respectively. The results of the linear mixed-effects model showed that the annual rate of conflict in Iran decreased by 0.37% from 2014 to 2017 and then slightly increased by 0.07% after 2017. In addition, the GMM results indicated that the trends for Iranian provinces can be clustered into four distinct classes.ConclusionOur study showed the increasing growth of conflict in the last years in most provinces of Iran. Necessary interventions are important to prevent the rising conflict rate due to the various effects of conflict on psychological, social, and health factors.© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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