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Table 2 Characteristics of slum dwellers according to the UN-Habitat reported by slum studies

From: The economics of healthcare access: a scoping review on the economic impact of healthcare access for vulnerable urban populations in low- and middle-income countries

Study

Security of tenure

Access to basic services and formal city infrastructure

Planning and building regulations

Additional elements

Das, 2010 [39]

 

A substantial proportion of households did not have metered electric supply, access to individual or communal piped water or individual toilet facilities

Situated on or beside hazardous locations like railway lines, garbage dumps and polluted bodies of water. Houses were of insubstantial construction

 

Bhojani, 2012 [104]

 

Inadequate sanitary and drinking water facilities

Compact settlement of poorly built tenements

 

Sakdapolrak, 2013 [103]

Danger of eviction

 

Not fully recognized and lack of basic infrastructure

Physical and spatial manifestation of urban poverty. Population suffers discriminatory and oppressive practice of unsociability

Patel, 2013 [105]

 

Poor access to sanitation and clean water due to non-existent or poorly developed basic infrastructure

 

Dense populations

Seeberg, 2014 [106]

 

Houses served by illegal electricity connections provided by a local contractor for a monthly fee. No regular water supply. Inhabitants dependent on two communal water sources, which provided water for two hours in a day and on water tankers that came once a day, and often in the summer once in two days

Houses built with concrete and tin roofs, but a majority with flammable roofs

Single room hutments of approximately 50 m2 served as an all-purpose room generally demarcated into a sleeping area and a cooking area

Densely packed shelters

Buigut, 2015 [68]

 

Lack of access to piped water, poor environmental sanitation

Poor and unsafe dwelling structures

High unemployment and low incomes, low education levels, and high disease prevalence

Khan, 2015 [110]

   

Dwellers typically engaged in informal sector and low skill jobs occupations like hawking, trading, domestic work, rickshaw, brick breaking, construction

Kien, 2016 [109]

  

Located in narrow spaces and/or in polluted locations

A group of at least 30 households that are temporary and/or very old houses

Mukama, 2018 [111]

   

Informal and substandard housing and a high population density. It is primarily residential with small businesses such as kiosks and grocery stalls

Kusuma, 2019 [108]

  

Dwellings walled and roofed with tin/asbestos sheets. Questionable legality

Inhabited by the people, who migrated to work in the industries and factories long back and started living by establishing their hold in these areas by constructing their own houses

Banerjee, 2019 [112]

   

Dwellers are mostly from lower social and economic status and remain more exposed to the physically demanding jobs, poorer health status, and associated disabilities

Adams, 2020 [107]

 

limited access to basic services

Inadequate housing

Crowding, insecurity