Researchers offer simple ideas to make life in favelas healthier

Simple and affordable solutions—such as the use of cobogós (perforated or latticed concrete blocks), windows, and roof slabs with the correct slope—can make homes in favelas more pleasant and keep diseases at bay. To prevent the spread of tuberculosis some four years ago, research foundation Fiocruz started designing the project Habitação Saudável (“Healthy Housing”).

Its pilot project was developed in Complexo de Manguinhos, a group of favelas near the foundation’s headquarters in northern Rio de Janeiro. The plan was based on the local incidence of tuberculosis in 2019.

“A large number of cases of tuberculosis in Manguinhos were reported in a region with the greatest socio-economic difficulties, areas where the illness was transmitted inside the houses. Those houses had the highest number of people and ventilation issues, not to mention a great deal of direct sunlight. Contamination was rife,” Fiocruz pulmonologist Patrícia Canto Ribeiro noted.

Low-cost improvements

The original idea was to select 40 houses from the favela and create architectural plans with low-cost improvements to be applied to other properties in the slums. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers to halt their efforts, and the initiative had to undergo adaptations.

The focus shifted to training 130 community agents, who received instructions on the initiative’s methodology and the production of educational material, including videos and a handbook.

Both the agents and the material teach favela residents how to make low-cost renovations or improvements to their homes in order to increase air circulation, enhance lighting, and control infiltration and mold.

“Houses with a large number of people, as well as poorly ventilated houses, facilitate the transmission of tuberculosis, respiratory viruses, COVID-19, and influenza,” the expert noted, adding that these “sick houses” can also make asthma, bronchitis, and allergies worse.

After the pandemic, however, Fiocruz intends to take up the original idea again, and send architects on visits to come up with ways to turn homes into healthier environments. To meet this goal, though, the initiative needs funding.

“The parliamentary amendment [earmarking funds for the first section of the project] is over, so we need a new one. We’re trying to contact Congress members who might embrace this idea.”

Resources should also allow the plan to be taken to other favelas in Rio de Janeiro as well as the rest of Brazil. “We understand that housing should be everyone’s right. But the houses have to be safe,” she concluded saying.