Safety and Health Risk Assessment in Mosques, Shiraz, Iran

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the risk of safety and health in mosques in Shiraz, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 131 mosques in Shiraz. The safety status was assessed using a self-made audit checklist consisting of 48 items in 6 safety dimensions including housekeeping, heating and cooling systems, environmental health, building safety, electrical safety, and fire safety and emergency response. Each item the checklist was assigned, one of the correct, incorrect, and unobserved responses, and finally the overall score of the mosque safety index (MSI) was calculated as the percentage of correct items per total observed cases. Results: The average of mosques safety index was calculated to be 66 ± 9.59% in all mosques. The highest and lowest safety indexes were 91.7 ± 11.33% for building safety and 28.9 ± 12.4% for fire safety as well as emergency response, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference among the studied mosques in the four urban regions, in terms of mosques safety index. Conclusions: The results of this study indicated the need to inform the authorities about the safety priorities of safety promotions in mosques.