Abstract:
Access to water, sanitation, and public health services is a key indicator of quality
of life, and these resources are greatly limited for the urban poor in Maceio, Brazil.
Maceio, the capital of Alagoas state, is an environment rich in natural resources and
culture. A sharp rise in population, new construction, and globalized business have made
a marked impact on the city, since its founding in 1815. Despite development, the urban
poor struggle to advance, unable to afford the new standards of modern living, including
finding the means of accumulating income, the challenges of retaining good health, and
seeking quality access to basic needs. Never designed for its current population,
Maceio‟s original infrastructure is limited, and its ability to provide services to the entire
community is severely strained.
This field study, based on field research in 2008 and 2009, examines the type of
access impoverished citizens have to resources in urban areas of Maceio looking at three
critical resources: water, sanitation and healthcare. The thesis investigates whether lack
of access to clean water, sanitation, and efficient health care led to population
vulnerabilities to, in particular, waterborne and hygiene-related diseases, and what level
of care was available to those affected by disease
Using data gathering, primarily through interviews and participant observation, I
was able to determine the proximal access to resources and services to the poor, and
through these indicators, make connections between that access and the occurrence of
disease in the population. Although the study is meant to be anthropological rather than
epidemiological, this observation of the “diseases of poverty” interprets various diseases
as both widespread in the studied population, and a product of social inequality.
The imbalance of access uncovered during my fieldwork illuminates the growing
concern in public health that unnecessary suffering and premature death, typically among
the poor, still exists in modern Brazil. Inequality among those who greatly need services
is rampant, yet the developing nation concentrates its expenditures on alternate priorities.
