Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, Brazil E-mail:
J Water Health. 2022 Jan;20(1):41-53. doi: 10.2166/wh.2021.127.
Public toilets are essential infrastructure to guarantee the right to sanitation in public spaces and, in more general terms, the right to inclusive and sustainable cities. Moreover, since the equipment has a direct user interface, it is important to understand their demands and needs. Given this, the present research aims to understand the perspective of public toilet users on the Pampulha Lake Shore (PLS), a public touristic place in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. For that, observations and semi-structured interviews were carried out with different public toilet users. In addition, comments posted on the Google Local Guides tool of Google Maps were used as a secondary database for understanding users' experience of PLS toilets. The analysis made it possible to identify aspects related to availability, quality (health and hygiene), security, and accessibility. Collected data showed how the conflicting choice of whether or not to use the toilet was directly related to the health and conservation of the urban equipment and interfered with social and leisure prospects. On the whole, the importance of the user's perspective was highlighted in this study with emphasis on elaborating adequate urban planning with regard to health, sanitation, and accessibility issues.
公共厕所是保障公共空间卫生权和更广义的包容性可持续城市权的基本基础设施。此外，由于设备具有直接的用户界面，因此了解其需求至关重要。有鉴于此，本研究旨在了解巴西贝洛奥里藏特潘普利亚湖滨（PLS）公共旅游区公共厕所使用者的观点。为此，对不同的公共厕所使用者进行了观察和半结构化访谈。此外，还使用了谷歌地图的 Google Local Guides 工具上发布的评论作为理解用户 PLS 厕所体验的辅助数据库。分析结果能够确定与可用性、质量（健康和卫生）、安全性和可及性相关的方面。收集的数据表明，是否使用厕所的矛盾选择与城市设备的健康和保护直接相关，并影响社会和休闲前景。总的来说，本研究强调了用户观点的重要性，重点阐述了在健康、卫生和无障碍问题方面进行适当城市规划的重要性。
