Unsustainable Development and Prevalence of Addiction in Villages (Case Study: Imamzadeh Village in Urmia County)

The current research mainly aimed to discover the hidden angles and dimensions of what, why, how, and consequences of the prevalence of addiction in the unsustainable rural and unbalanced urban development process, to measure the intensity and prevalence range coefficient of addiction in the village, and to provide a grounded theory for conducting surveys in future research on the one hand, and to discover the state of transmitting the addiction range from the gray ages to the low and young age ranges, and to change the traditional pattern of addiction to industrial substances on the other hand.

The current research was based on the grounded theory method using a semi-structured interview, which was designed according to Strauss-Corbin's model, and consisted of two groups of village informants (n=17) and substance-dependent individuals in the village (n=33).

The most commonly used substances in this village were opium and psychoactive substances, including crystal and other industrial substances, respectively, and the prevalence coefficient of addiction in recent years, starting from 2018 to 2020, was about 35 per thousand annually, i.e., about 3.5%. The causal conditions of the village centered on its unsustainable development and the overflow of urban problems and damages in the city of Urmia due to its unbalanced development with the background conditions existing in the structure of the village and substance- dependent individuals and with the intervention and mediation of effective variables lay the foundation for the high prevalence coefficient of addiction in this village, the consequences of which in the absence of proper intervention will be the increased prevalence coefficient and intensified level of underdevelopment of Imamzadeh Village in Urmia in the future.

The worrisome consequences of unbalanced development, increased rural functional disorder, reduced social solidarity, intensified social inequality, doubled prevalence of addiction, collapsed social capital, etc. are all alarming warnings that should be urgently addressed.