Basic sanitation services in Minas Gerais state and their local, demographic and socio-economic determinants

Abstract

The basic sanitation is a fundamental factor for the development of a region and, in this context, the present study aims to measure indicators of basic sanitation services in 794 municipalities of Minas Gerais State, as well as to identify their local, demographic and socio-economic determinants. Specifically, it is intended with data from 2015 and through the multivariate data analysis, the study aimed to measure the Indicator of Access and Quality of the Basic Sanitation (IAQSB) and to point out which factors discriminate the municipalities with larger and smaller IAQSB. The results obtained identify two prominent municipal districts within IAQSB: Contagem and Juiz de Fora. Such analysis also demonstrates the existence of expressive inequalities among the municipalities of the northern areas, Jequitinhonha and Mucuri valleys. The analysis of socio-demographic factors that discriminated IAQSB more, present as four variables with discrimination capacity, related to the tax and economic development; to the poverty; to the urbanization tax and the economic development. Thus, all the results obtained and analyzed in the present study strengthen the argument that the effectiveness of public policies for the improvement of the quality of sanitation services, as well as, the reduction of access inequalities for the population, request actions coordinated in the different fronts of the government action.