A Transect Through the Living Environments of Slovakia’s Roma Population: Urban, Sub-Urban, and Rural Settlements, and Exposure to Environmental and Water-Related Health Risks

Lukáš Ihnacik, Ingrid Papajová, Júlia Šmigová, Mark Brussel, Musa Manga, Ján Papaj, Ingrid Schusterová and Carmen Anthonj ()
Additional contact information
Lukáš Ihnacik: Institute of Parasitology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
Ingrid Papajová: Institute of Parasitology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
Júlia Šmigová: Institute of Parasitology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
Mark Brussel: Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands
Musa Manga: The Water Institute at UNC, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Ján Papaj: Department of Electronics and Multimedia Telecommunications, Technical University of Košice, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
Ingrid Schusterová: Faculty of Medicine, East Slovak Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, 040 01 Košice, Slovakia
Carmen Anthonj: Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2025, vol. 22, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: The Roma population is one of Europe’s largest ethnic minorities, often living in inadequate living conditions, worse than those of the majority population. They frequently lack access to essential services, even in high-income countries. This lack of basic services—particularly in combination with proximity to (stray) animals and human and solid waste—significantly increases environmental health risks, and leads to a higher rate of endoparasitic infections. Our study sheds light on the living conditions and health situation in Roma communities in Slovakia, focusing on the prevalence of intestinal endoparasitic infections across various settlement localisations. It highlights disparities and challenges in access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and other potentially disease-exposing factors among these marginalised populations. This study combines a comprehensive review of living conditions as per national data provided through the Atlas of Roma communities with an analysis of empirical data on parasitological infection rates in humans, animals, and the environment in settlements, applying descriptive statistical methods. It is the first study in Europe to provide detailed insights into how living conditions vary and cause health risks across Roma settlements, ranging from those integrated within villages (inside, urban), to those isolated on the outskirts (edge, sub-urban) or outside villages (natural/rural). Our study shows clear disparities in access to services, and in health outcomes, based on where people live. Our findings underscore the fact that (i) place—geographical centrality in particular—in an already challenged population group plays a major role in health inequalities and disease exposure, as well as (ii) the urgent need for more current and comprehensive data. Our study highlights persistent disparities in living conditions within high-income countries and stresses the need for greater attention and more sensitive targeted health-promoting approaches with marginalised communities in Europe that take into consideration any and all of the humans, ecology, and animals affected (=One Health).

Keywords: endoparasites; health inequalities; one health; Roma communities; social inequalities; vulnerable groups; WASH (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/7/988/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/7/988/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:7:p:988-:d:1685576

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().