The Rural Housing Project and its effect on Housing Health and Safety Indices

Housing indexes are tools for assessing housing conditions and its evolution; and can also be used in assessment of the success rates in achieving the future planning goals. The current study was done in order to evaluate and compare the health and safety indices in the houses of the Rural Housing Project constructed after the 2003 earthquake in Bam with the traditional houses in this region. This descriptive cross sectional study was done by systematic sampling and the health and safety indices of 519 new and 283 traditional houses in ten villages of Bam were evaluated and compared by standard questionnaires. In these checklists the safety of the houses, the living conditions according to the principles of environmental health engineering and the physical space of the buildings were evaluated. Descriptive results were reported and the chi-square test was used to compare the data by Excel and Minitab. The results of this study show that the number of families living in each house in the new and traditional houses was respectively 1.15 and 1.24 family per room. The mean built up area of each house was 60 and 50 square meters and the mean ratio of people of each room was 2.63 and 2.29 respectively. The health status of the walls, floors and ceilings of the rooms in the newhouses was acceptable in more than 97% but in traditional houses was 67-76 percent. The health status of the kitchens and rooms in the new houses was significantly better than the traditional ones, but the condition of the toilets and bathrooms in both houses was unacceptable in most circumstances and was for toilets 7 and 16, and for bathrooms 55 and 74 percent in new and traditional houses respectively. The safety indices of the rooms and kitchens were significantly better in the new houses (46 and 39 percent respectively in new houses), but the safety of the bathrooms and staircases was significantly better in the traditional houses (54 and 53 percent respectively in traditional houses). The current study shows relative progress in the housing indexes of the rural housing project in comparison to the traditional houses, although they are still far from ideal. There are concerns about the proportion of people to spaces, accessibility to healthy water inside the house, and environmental sanitation with regard to wastewater and solid waste disposal. Also in addition to construction of housing units, we suggest that construction of private bathrooms and toilets should be considered by the Housing Foundation.