Publications by authors named "Tejal Shitole"

In disadvantaged neighborhoods such as informal settlements (or "slums" in the Indian context), infrastructural deficits and social conditions have been associated with residents' poor mental health. Within social determinants of health framework, spatial stigma, or negative portrayal and stereotyping of particular neighborhoods, has been identified as a contributor to health deficits, but remains under-examined in public health research and may adversely impact the mental health of slum residents through pathways including disinvestment in infrastructure, internalization, weakened community relations, and discrimination. Based on analyses of individual interviews (n = 40) and focus groups (n = 6) in Kaula Bandar (KB), an informal settlement in Mumbai with a previously described high rate of probable common mental disorders (CMD), this study investigates the association between spatial stigma and mental health.

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Inadequate water access is central to the experience of urban inequality across low- and middle-income countries and leads to adverse health and social outcomes. Previous literature on water inequality in Mumbai, India's second largest city, offers diverse explanations for water disparities between and within slums. This study provides new insights on water disparities in Mumbai's slums by evaluating the influence of legal status on water access.

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Objective: A focus on bacterial contamination has limited many studies of water service delivery in slums, with diarrheal illness being the presumed outcome of interest. We conducted a mixed methods study in a slum of 12,000 people in Mumbai, India to measure deficiencies in a broader array of water service delivery indicators and their adverse life impacts on the slum's residents.

Methods: Six focus group discussions and 40 individual qualitative interviews were conducted using purposeful sampling.

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In India, "non-notified" slums are not officially recognized by city governments; they suffer from insecure tenure and poorer access to basic services than "notified" (government-recognized) slums. We conducted a study in a non-notified slum of about 12,000 people in Mumbai to determine the prevalence of individuals at high risk for having a common mental disorder (i.e.

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Background: We devised and implemented an innovative Location-Based Household Coding System (LBHCS) appropriate to a densely populated informal settlement in Mumbai, India.

Methods And Findings: LBHCS codes were designed to double as unique household identifiers and as walking directions; when an entire community is enumerated, LBHCS codes can be used to identify the number of households located per road (or lane) segment. LBHCS was used in community-wide biometric, mental health, diarrheal disease, and water poverty studies.

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Objectives: Rapid urbanisation has often meant that public infrastructure has not kept pace with growth leading to urban slums with poor access to water and sanitation and high rates of diarrhoea with greater household costs due to illness. This study sought to determine the monetary cost of diarrhoea to urban slum households in Kaula Bandar slum in Mumbai, India. The study also tested the hypotheses that the cost of water and sanitation infrastructure may be surpassed by the cumulative costs of diarrhoea for households in an urban slum community.

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Background: Urban slums in developing countries that are not recognized by the government often lack legal access to municipal water supplies. This results in the creation of insecure "informal" water distribution systems (i.e.

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Approximately half of all slums in India are not recognized by the government. Lack of government recognition, also referred to as "non-notified status" in the Indian context, may create entrenched barriers to legal rights and basic services such as water, sanitation, and security of tenure. In this paper, we explore the relationship between non-notified status and health outcomes in Kaula Bandar (KB), a slum in Mumbai, India.

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