Environmental health indicator for Campina Grande, PB, Brazil: Adjustments, developments and applications

Abstract

Environmental health is strongly related to the quality of basic sanitation services. Those services must provide a better quality of life for people and the environment. This research has developed an indicator (environmental health indicator — EHI) for assessing basic health conditions in Campina Grande, PB (Brazil). Its starting point is an adaptation of a known EHI developed by CONESAN (São Paulo, Brazil) in 1999. EHI can be a planning tool and a public environmental management tool for priorities decision-making related to basic health services. It should guide governmental policies and civil society in several decision-making processes for a better quality of life in cities. First, EHI/CG values were developed and spatialized by census track for the whole city. Second, in a validation method, two additional indicators (environmental comfort and reservoir capacity) were developed in a different scale (urban fraction). Four pilot areas were chosen based on the highest and the lowest EHI/CG values for the whole city.