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[Association between household solid waste disposal and health, Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasil]
1Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Engenharia Sanitária e Ambiental, Belo Horizonte, Brasil.
Insights
Inadequate solid waste collection is linked to increased diarrheal, parasitic, and dermatological diseases in children under 5. Improved waste management could prevent thousands of cases in Belo Horizonte.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Epidemiology
- Pediatrics
Context:
- Limited research exists on the health impacts of insufficient solid waste collection.
- Focuses on children under 5 in low-income neighborhoods and favelas in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Purpose:
- To investigate the association between inadequate solid waste collection and health outcomes in young children.
- To quantify the increased risk of specific diseases due to lack of waste services.
Summary:
- A cross-sectional study defined 'exposed' children as those without waste collection and 'cases' as those with diarrheal, parasitic, or dermatological diseases.
- Results indicate a 40% higher odds of these diseases in exposed children (OR = 1.40).
- Attributable risk calculations suggest significant disease prevention potential with adequate waste collection.
Impact:
- Highlights the critical role of solid waste management in public health, particularly for vulnerable child populations.
- Provides data to support public health interventions and urban planning in Belo Horizonte.
- Demonstrates the preventable burden of disease linked to environmental sanitation deficiencies.
Abstract:
There are few published studies about the effects of inadequate solid waste collection on the health of the population exposed to this situation. The objective of the present work was to describe this association in a sample of children under 5 years of age living in seven low-income neighborhoods and favelas in the city of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. We defined as "exposed" those children whose families were not served by waste collection; "not-exposed" were children who lived in areas with waste collection. The study employed data collected in 1994 and organized as a database by the municipal department of health. We employed a cross-sectional design, in which a "case" was defined as a child whose outpatient clinic record indicated a diagnosis of diarrheal, parasitic, or dermatological disease. Other diagnoses for the same age group composed the control group. Our epidemiological study revealed an association between the absence of domestic solid waste collection and public health. Our results suggest that the children exposed to the absence of solid waste collection have a 40% higher odds (OR = 1.40) of presenting diarrheal, parasitic, and dermatological diseases than not-exposed children. In addition, the calculation of attributable risk revealed that the presence of waste collection could prevent (based on the 1995 situation) 512 cases in the neighborhoods studied and (based on the 1994 conditions) 2316 cases among children in the entire city of Belo Horizonte.