Política urbana para áreas pobres e qualidade da moradia: uma avaliação da implementação das Zonas Especiais de Interesse Social (ZEIS) no Brasil

Abstract. Initially, the need for housing was a matter of providing shelter but after satisfying this basic human need, users` expectation of housing has increased. Due to the population growth and increased need for housing followed with a rise in construction statistics, paying attention to quantitative and qualitative criteria is particularly important. This study is of a descriptive - analytic type and its overall purpose is to identify the effects of government policies on improving housing quality and quantity of housing in the city of Sari. The main hypothesis of this study is the effectiveness of government policies on the quality and quantity of housing in the city of Sari, and after carrying out surveys, data was collected by means of questionnaires and analyzed through SPSS software. The results of the study showed that applied government policies in Housing and Urban Development system have improved the quantity and quality of housing in this city that the most effective policies were the ones related to providing banking facilities for the construction and reconstruction of housing units and the least effective ones were the ones related to importing building materials from outside the country.

Urbanization progress in developing countries is reflected in the urban living conditions of their rural migrants. Housing quality, in particular, is linked to migrants’ social integration and development of human capital. In China, where urban housing is highly stratified by urban citizenship via the “hukou” or household registration system, improving housing quality is a top priority for the central government in its pursuit of human-centered urbanization. Despite some social and economic elements affecting migrants’ housing quality being documented, few studies have analyzed the determinants of rural migrants’ housing quality from the perspective of rural landholdings or possession of use rights of rural lands, which is endowed by the land system of China. Using large micro-data from the China Migrant Dynamic Survey (CMDS), this study investigates the association between hometown landholdings and rural migrants’ housing quality in their host cities. The empirical results suggest that possessing rural landholdings in their hometown is negatively correlated with rural migrants’ housing quality in their host cities, wherein rural migrants’ hukou transfer intention is found as an intermediary factor. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the relationship across demographic characteristics and regions was investigated. In addition, short-term revenue derived from hometown landholdings is also verified to have a very limited positive effect on migrants’ housing quality. Land transfer policies customized for subgroups of rural migrants across sociological attributes and urban stratification are concluded finally.

Following the recent global climate changes, many countries, including developed nations, are announcing greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets and are actively participating in reducing GHG. Therefore, the role of the building sector on reducing GHG is being emphasized, and the establishment of policy structures for both making environmentally friendly capacity compulsory and improving the housing quality is being demanded. South Korea is also developing a policy for improving housing quality, but in order to achieve more competitive growth, this must be preceded by an analysis of current policy status within various countries on improving housing quality. This study aims to suggest direction about policies that will improve the housing quality in South Korea. For this, the policies of major countries were able to categorize and compare according to three major categories (performance, function, and aesthetics), and seven factors (safety, durability, cost and maintenance, response to residents’ needs, habitability, energy saving, and building design) regarding housing quality. As a result, from the performance aspect, policy directions were suggested for safe housing, the urban environment, regeneration of quality stock, and the usage of existing stock; from the functional aspect, policies for improving housing quality that responds to the aging population and energy saving housing were suggested; from the aesthetic aspect, housing designs that consider the urban environment were suggested.

The extent to which a house is structurally sound is an important marker of housing quality and a determinant of human health. In India, the share of homes that are structurally sound has increased considerably over the past few decades, yet geographical variations persist especially between urban and rural communities. Using data from two rounds of India's National Family Health Survey in 2016 and 2021, we estimated a multilevel model using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure to examine changes in the share of finished, semi-finished, and rudimentary housing in urban and rural communities across India's 720 districts. In urban communities, the share of finished housing increased slightly from 82.9% (95% CI: 82.7-83.1) in 2016 to 83.2% (95% CI: 83.0-83.4) in 2021. In rural communities, the share of finished housing increased from 41.3% (95% CI: 41.1-41.4) in 2016 to 48.5% (95% CI: 48.3-48.6) in 2021. However, we found substantial between-district disparities, and that the between-community variation increased in many of the districts that experienced overall improvements in housing quality for all three measures of housing quality between 2016 and 2021. District administrations in India can use these results to understand the quality of housing in their jurisdictions. These results can help district administrators work with national policy makers to refine policies aimed at improving housing quality.

This study goes beyond housing ownership and investigates how housing size, quality, and location affect the mental health of rural migrants in urban China. By using the RUMiC data, the results show that in addition to housing ownership, living space and housing quality are also significantly associated with the mental health of rural migrants. Moreover, with an increase in living space, the mental health of rural migrants who live in private rental housing tends to improve significantly slower than rural migrants who live in dormitories. Furthermore, housing quality and housing location do not moderate the effect of housing ownership on the mental health of rural migrants. This study highlights that it is important to go beyond homeownership and pay more attention to other attributes of housing when studying the mental health of rural migrants. Particularly, this study underscores that improving housing quality is an effective way to improve the mental health of rural migrants in urban China.

There is extensive research on the negative health impacts of poor housing quality. However, little is known about the potential health benefits of high-quality housing in poor neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods with unexpectedly good health outcomes despite high levels of deprivation have been deemed resilient places and housing quality in these areas may be a contributor to this resilience. This study aimed to evaluate whether an indicator of neighbourhood housing quality was associated with a previously quantified resilience index (RINZ) in New Zealand. It was found that areas with high housing quality tended to have higher median income, greater proportions of partnered people and shorter-term residents, and very low proportions of Māori. A positive association was found between housing quality and resilience, after adjustment for deprivation. There was no indication of differences by heterogeneity in housing quality within the aggregate unit of analysis. These findings pose the hypothesis that improving housing quality in similarly deprived areas that have poor health outcomes could potentially boost health. To extend this understanding, further development of a more sophisticated housing quality indicator is recommended.

Rural residents spend more money on housing than on any other item in their lifetimes in China and housing quality is a crucial determinant of their subjective well-being. Based on the 2010 wave of the China General Social Survey, this paper investigates housing quality and its determinants in rural China. Since housing quality is multi-dimensional and indicated by housing size, construction material, tap water, indoor toilet and indoor kitchen, this paper takes housing quality as a latent variable and applies a structural equation model. Results show that housing inequality and poverty exist in rural China, especially in the central and inland regions. In addition, results suggest that household income, social network, communist party membership, and human capital have significant positive impacts on rural residents’ housing quality while construction cost has negative impacts. Housing-improvement programs should be implemented to assist the poor in improving housing quality.

SummaryAlthough SARS‐CoV‐2 surface contamination has been investigated in health care settings, little is known about the SARS‐CoV‐2 surface contamination in public urban areas, particularly in tropical countries. Here, we investigated the presence of SARS‐CoV‐2 on high‐touch surfaces in a large city in Brazil, one of the most affected countries by the COVID‐19 pandemic in the world. A total of 400 surface samples were collected in February 2021 in the City of Recife, Northeastern Brazil. A total of 97 samples (24.2%) tested positive for SARS‐CoV‐2 by RT‐qPCR using the CDC‐USA protocol. All the collection sites, except one (18/19, 94.7%) had at least one environmental surface sample contaminated. SARS‐CoV‐2 positivity was higher in public transport terminals (47/84, 55.9%), followed by health care units (26/84, 30.9%), beach areas (4/21, 19.0%), public parks (14/105, 13.3%), supply centre (2/21, 9.5%), and public markets (4/85, 4.7%). Toilets, ATMs, handrails, playgrounds and outdoor gyms were identified as fomites with the highest rates of SARS‐CoV‐2 detection. Taken together, our data provide a real‐world picture of SARS‐CoV‐2 dispersion in highly populated tropical areas and identify critical control points that need to be targeted to break SARS‐CoV‐2 transmission chains.

Delivering the promise of ‘better homes’?: Assessing housing quality impacts of slum redevelopment in India

A major goal of health systems is to reduce inequities in access to services, that is, to ensure that health care is provided based on health needs rather than social or economic factors. This study aims to identify the determinants of health services utilization among adults in a large Brazilian city and intraurban disparities in health care use. We combine household survey data with census-derived classification of social vulnerability of each household's census tract. The dependent variable was utilization of physician services in the prior 12 months, and the independent variables included predisposing factors, health needs, enabling factors, and context. Prevalence ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated by the Hurdle regression model, which combined Poisson regression analysis of factors associated with any doctor visits (dichotomous variable) and zero-truncated negative binomial regression for the analysis of factors associated with the number of visits among those who had at least one. Results indicate that the use of health services was greater among women and increased with age, and was determined primarily by health needs and whether the individual had a regular doctor, even among those living in areas of the city with the worst socio-environmental indicators. The experience of Belo Horizonte may have implications for other world cities, particularly in the development and use of a comprehensive index to identify populations at risk and in order to guide expansion of primary health care services as a means of enhancing equity in health.

Physical and mental health impacts of housing improvement: A quasi-experimental evaluation of in-situ slum redevelopment in India

In Japan, the number of houses available exceeds the demand in all prefectures. Improving housing quality has gained importance over building new dwelling stock. The thrust of housing policies and programs in Japan is to improve housing quality. Housing quality is a very loosely defined term, and there is no consensus in the housing literature on its measurement. The present paper proposes the use of the hedonic approach to estimate a quantifiable measure of housing quality in the Tokyo Metropolitan Region (TMR). The objective of this paper is to compare housing quality in the five prefectures of the TMR and among six tenures of housing choice. The results indicate that the condition of rental housing in general is poor.

Barriers to homeownership and housing quality: The impact of the international mortgage market

BackgroundPoor-quality housing adversely affects residents’ health but there is a paucity of high-quality evidence to support this.ObjectiveThis research investigated the health impact of bringing housing to a national quality standard.DesignA natural experiment of improvements to housing quality analysed using repeated measures of health-care utilisation and economic outcomes at an individual person level.SettingCarmarthenshire, UK.ParticipantsA total of 32,009 residents registered for a minimum of 60 days at 8558 social homes that received housing improvements between January 2005 and March 2015.InterventionsMultiple internal and external housing improvements, including wall and loft insulation, windows and doors, heating system upgrades, new kitchens and bathrooms, garden path safety improvements and electrical system upgrades (adding power sockets, and extractor fans in kitchens and bathrooms).Main outcome measuresEmergency hospital admissions for cardiorespiratory conditions and injuries. Primary health-care utilisation for respiratory and common mental health disorders, emergency department injury attendances and health-care utilisation costs.Data sourcesCarmarthenshire County Council home address and intervention records were anonymously linked within the Secure Anonymous Information Linkage databank to demographic information from the Welsh Demographic Service data set; hospital admission data from the Patient Episode Dataset for Wales; primary care contacts and prescribed medications from general practice data; emergency department attendances from the Emergency Department Data Set; and deaths from the Office for National Statistics mortality register.MethodsThe study used a longitudinal panel design to examine changes in standard of eight housing cointervention from intervention records, and linked to individuals registered at intervention homes. Health outcomes were obtained retrospectively for each individual in a dynamic cohort and were captured for up to 123 consecutive months. An additional local authority region could not be utilised as a comparator owing to different reporting pressures resulting in the recording of a different intervention. The exposure group for each cointervention was compared with an internal reference group of people living in homes that did not receive the cointervention during their tenancy. A multilevel modelling approach was used to account for repeated observations for individuals living in intervention homes. Counts of health outcomes were analysed using negative binomial regression models to determine the effect of each cointervention that reached housing quality standards during an individual’s period of tenancy, compared with those living in properties that did not. We adjusted for potential confounding factors and for background trends in the regional general population. A cost–consequences analysis was conducted as part of the health economic evaluation.ResultsResidents aged ≥ 60 years living in homes in which electrical systems were upgraded were associated with 39% fewer admissions than those living in homes in which they were not [incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.53 to 0.72;p < 0.01]. Reduced admissions were also associated with windows and doors (IRR 0.71, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.81;p < 0.01), wall insulation (IRR 0.75, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.84;p < 0.01) and gardens and estates (IRR 0.73, 95% CI 0.64 to 0.83;p < 0.01) for those living in homes in which these cointervention were upgraded. There were no associations of change in emergency admissions with upgrading heating (IRR 0.91, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.01;p = 0.072), loft insulation (IRR 0.98, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.11;p = 0.695), kitchens (IRR 0.98, 95% CI 0.83 to 1.17;p = 0.843) or bathrooms (IRR 0.93, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.06;p = 0.287).LimitationsThere was no randomisation, there were incomplete data on the scale of the intervention for individual households and there were no estimates for the impact of the whole programme.ConclusionsThis complex interdisciplinary study found that hospital admissions could be avoided through improving housing quality standards.Future workAt their initiation, future non-health projects should have a built-in evaluation to allow intervention exposures to be randomly allocated to residents, with the simultaneous analysis of multiple health outcomes in one statistical model.FundingThe National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme.

Shelter from the Storm: Roles, responsibilities, and challenges in United States housing policy governance