Wealth, Health, and Inequality: Households Exposure to Environmental Hazards

Abstract

This study examined the geographies of ecological hazards in the “Garden City” of West Africa, Kumasi. The data collection involved questionnaire survey of 300 households using proportional representative sample of residential communities. This was complemented with 6 focus group discussions and 12 in-depth interviews with officers involved in environmental management. The results show that the disparities in household exposure to environmental hazards were not only skewed towards the economically deprived communities but were also disproportionately biased against the indigenous communities. The research views this development as an indication of poor urban environmental management and confirms how lack of holistic environmental planning has led to injustice in the exposure to environmental hazards. We argue that a proper environmental management framework has to be developed to correct the inequalities in order to guarantee social cohesion within the entire urban space.