Environment and health disparities in urban communities: Focus on Eti Osa, Nigeria

- The paper considers the effects of socio-economic status as a determinant of urban health outcomes.
- It was discovered that household access to safe water mirrored community income status.
- The study concluded by advancing health advocacy and environmental sanitation for addressing identified disparities.

This paper investigates environment and health differentials in three contiguous communities in the Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria. This paper considers the effects of socio-economic status as a determinant of urban health outcomes. Issues examined include housing and environmental conditions as well as socio-economic characteristics such as age, gender, income and household size. Furthermore, health seeking behaviour was investigated and these include expenditure on health as well as health and nutritional habits. Data collection was by simple random sampling on household heads in the study area which comprised Obalende, Dolphin Estate and Ikoyi - low, medium and high income neighbourhoods respectively. Data analysis was by simple descriptive statistics as well as analysis of variance. The study discovered that household access to safe water ranged from 86% in Dolphin Estate, 71% in Ikoyi to 28% in Obalende hence the perceived high incidence of sanitation ailments there. It was also discovered that there were significant variations in nutritional habits across the three communities. The study concluded by suggesting strategies for addressing identified disparities and these include health advocacy as well as environmental sanitation.