Lake Urmia Drying and People’s Health: Attitudes of Locals and Health Service Providers around the Lake

Abstract

Purpose:The aim of the present study is to bring to the surface the attitudes of locals and health service providers who live around Lake Urmia about its drying and consequence effects on people's health. Methods:In this qualitative study with the grounded theory approach, the participants included 30 locals, 30 social workers, and 10 family doctors who were recruited by target-based sampling method from the villages of three east-costs cities of Lake Urmia.Results: Data were collected by holding 7 group discussion sessions and were analyzed using a contentanalysis methodology. Main themes and 15 sub-themes were extracted including indirect affecting factors on health (reduced revenues, changed agricultural patterns, migration, and unemployment) disease prevalence (respiratory diseases, cancers, anemia, psychological disorders, and others) confusing factors (screening patients and active respiratory recording, people's oversensitivity, and industrial and producing centers) and need for more evidence (need for strong evidence, need for data recording system, and need for providing scientific content). Conclusion:Based on participants' attitudes LUD is indirectly effective on people's health by reducing revenue, and changing agricultural patterns. About direct effects, still, it cannot be acclaimed that increase in the prevalence of diseases is related to LUD while many confusing factors are influential and further studies are needed.