Assessing Vulnerability Of Low-income
Communities To Indoor Air Pollution In
South Africa: Towards The Development Of A
Vulnerability Index
Author(s)
M. Binedell
Abstract
Health Risk Assessment (HRA) is a valuable tool for determining the potential
human health risk associated with environmental exposures to hazards. HRAs
are, however, limited in that they do not allow an assessment of other factors
which may render people more vulnerable. Low-income (and often marginalised)
communities are subjected to multiple environmental exposures and often lack
the coping mechanisms that enable them to resist, cope with and manage their
exposure to hazards. This paper presents the components of a proposed
vulnerability index that could be used to assess levels of vulnerability of lowincome
communities that are exposed to indoor air pollution. A number of
social, biophysical and service-related factors which are particularly relevant to
the South African context have been considered and are discussed further.
Keywords: vulnerability, household risk factors, indoor air pollution.
1 Introduction
Traditional health risk assessments aim to determine the probability and
magnitude of risks to human health from exposure to a particular hazard. These
assessments consider some of the characteristics of an exposed population, such
as age and length of exposure, and include these into the assessment of risks.
However, there are a number of other physical, social, economic and built
environment factors which may influence the magnitude of adverse health effects
Keywords
vulnerability, household risk factors, indoor air pollution.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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