Multidimensional Indices for the Analysis of Housing Precariousness: Approaches for Formulation and Application
The housing issue is a problem to be faced all over the world. In Brazil, the latest IBGE survey
(2020) indicates that there are more than 5 million households in subnormal settlements. The
improvement of techniques capable of identifying and characterizing precarious areas becomes,
therefore, increasingly relevant for the improvement of public policies. In order to investigate
alternatives for these surveys, this paper explores methodologies for the formulation of
multidimensional indices of housing precariousness, since the methodological decisions adopted may
be responsible for pointing to completely different results. To compare and analyze the different
approaches, the indexes developed will be applied to the Greater ABC region (RGABC), located in the
Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. For the evaluation of the different methodological approaches, the
results produced were compared to qualitative data of the region's precarious settlements, which were
surveyed by the Greater ABC Housing Diagnosis (CIGABC/UFABC, 2016; CIGABC/UFABC, 2017). The
index calculated from a hierarchical approach and with data transformed by the ranking technique was
the one that presented the best results for the identification of regions with a concentration of
precariousness and greater ability to differentiate the cells of the study area.