Yazd Health Study (YaHS) is a population-based cohort study of 9962 individuals aged 20–70 years, established in November 2014 in the Greater Yazd Area. This study aims to investigate the changing incidence of a variety of chronic illnesses and associated risk factors in an area with one of the highest rate of chronic illnesses in Iran. The family history of major non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is collected to investigate the pedigree of patients in the Yazd population. A biobank is established to collect blood and extract DNA samples from the participants for future genetic epidemiology studies. Geocoding of all participants is performed to prepare a database for spatial epidemiology investigation.

At baseline, trained interviewers collected detailed information on personal and dietary habits, physical activity, medical history, mental health status and social well-being of the participants and also anthropometric measurements (response rate ¼ 94.9%). All participants were invited to attend a referral laboratory to provide blood samples and 4010 (40%) of them did so. In the second phase of the study commencing in November 2015, the Yazd biobank (Zist Bank-e-Yazd-ZIBA) was established and a detailed