Homelessness, health, and habitat in developing countries – evidence from administrative data in Brazil (H3Dev)

• Applicant: Dr. Malte Becker
• Subject Area: Economic Policy, Applied Economics ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 577678713

Homelessness represents an extreme form of urban inequality that affects around 150 million people worldwide, the majority living in developing countries. Due to its immense health burden, homelessness is also considered a public health crisis. The number of people experiencing homelessness is expected to increase rapidly, as poorer countries quickly urbanize and climate-change-induced migration makes cities denser and more fragmented. However, empirical research on the drivers and consequences of homelessness remains limited by data constraints, which are particularly severe in developing countries. This project addresses these gaps by leveraging unique administrative data from Brazil, a country that has seen a sharp increase in its homeless population and collects high-quality but underexplored administrative data on people experiencing homelessness. Using empirical methods from urban economics, health economics, and epidemiology, this project will: (i) provide the first large-scale evidence on the health burden of homelessness in a developing-country by using unique nationwide data on mortality of people experiencing homelessness and non-homeless individuals; (ii) investigate the long-term effects of deinstitutionalization — the shift from hospital-based to community-based psychiatric care — by exploiting a major Brazilian policy reform; and (iii) estimate the effect of weather-induced rural-urban migration on homelessness. Insights from this project will offer valuable lessons for policymakers from Brazil and from other developing countries in the region that rely on public healthcare and social policies to tackle the increasing burden of homelessness.

• DFG Programme: Position