This book focuses on interdisciplinary issues of human health in the changing urban environments of India’s largest megacities—Delhi and Mumbai. The authors explore human health concerns related to increased temperatures and air pollution in these cities in a study based on primary data collected through interviews, as well as secondary data on causes of mortality from 2001 to 2012. During this period, the surface temperatures for both megacities were mapped using Landsat Images. The rapidly increasing populations of cities and urban centers alter ecosystem services such as water, air and land cover, with disastrous impacts on health and wellbeing, particularly in megacities. In 2015, polluted air was estimated to have been responsible for 6.4 million deaths worldwide, and it is projected that it will cause between 6 and 9 million deaths per year by 2060. In 2017, outdoor air pollution resulted in 1.2 million deaths in India and brought about a 3% loss in GDP. The increase in population, vehicles, and industries has led to changes in land use and land cover and a rise in city temperatures and air pollution, creating urban heat islands (UHIs). Together, UHIs and air pollution have damaging impacts on human health that range from stress and headache to asthma, bronchitis, and chronic diseases, and even to death. Delhi has been experiencing emergency conditions in terms of environmental health over the past two years. At the same time, both the Delhi and Mumbai urban agglomerations are growing at a rapid pace, and the United Nations has projected that they will be the second and third most populous cities in the world by 2025. In this context, the book offers significant insights into the past patterns and responses to the present global urban health emergencies, and explores sustainable means of combating the problem to enable college and university researchers to develop innovative solutions. Further. It presents trans-disciplinary research that cuts across the WHO Action Plan, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and Habitat III to help policymakers gain a better understanding of the global challenges of urban health and wellbeing. The book is especially useful for students and researchers in geography, urban demography, urban studies, environmental studies, health sciences, and policy studies.

This book is a compilation of the policy briefs produced by the International Science Council’s program on Urban Health and Wellbeing: A Systems Approach over the past five years. Intended for urban decision-makers at all levels, it highlights policy-relevant findings and research insights to encourage the co-creation of knowledge for healthy urban environments and people. The book shows how variations on the systems approach developed and promoted by the program have been implemented in regions around the world and contributed to improving urban health. These policy briefs summarize research findings and scientific events concerning urban health-related topics that are relevant for public health professionals, urban planners, urban stakeholder groups and the public at large.

This book addresses up-to-date urban health issues from a systems perspective and provides an appealing integrated urban development strategy based on a 10-year global interdisciplinary research programme created by the International Council for Science (ICSU), and sponsored by the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) and the United Nations University (UNU). The unique feature of this book is its “systems approach” to urban health and wellbeing: solution-oriented for science and society and not purely theoretical, it can be applied in the context of decision-making, and has the potential to unlock cities’ unused potential by promoting health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the inter- and transdisciplinary urban issues addressed in this book are examined from a cross-sectoral perspective – e.g. the transport sector is addressed in connection with air pollution, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and the loss of productivity. The interconnected thinking to urban health and wellbeing makes the book a particularly valuable resource. Decision makers in city administrations and civil society organizations from different geographical regions will find the book an informative and inspiring guide for delivering towards the goals of the New Urban Agenda, for which health can be the vital indicator of progress. Graduate students and researchers will be attracted by the case studies, systems methods and models provided in the book.

Through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, and with an emphasis on exploring patterns as well as distinct and unique conditions across the globe, this collection examines advanced and cutting-edge theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the health of urban populations. Despite the growing interest in global urban health, there are limited resources available that provide an extensive and advanced exploration into the health of urban populations in a transnational context. This volume offers a high-quality and comprehensive examination of global urban health issues by leading urban health scholars from around the world. The book brings together a multi-disciplinary perspective on urban health, with chapter contributions emphasizing disciplines in the social sciences, construction sciences and medical sciences. The co-editors of the collection come from a number of different disciplinary backgrounds that have been at the forefront of urban health research, including public health, epidemiology, geography, city planning and urban design. The book is intended to be a reference in global urban health for research libraries and faculty collections. It will also be appropriate as a text for university class adoption in upper-division under-graduate courses and above. The proposed volume is extensive and offers enough breadth and depth to enable it to be used for courses emphasizing a U.S., or wider Western perspective, as well as courses on urban health emphasizing a global context.

This book focuses on understanding urban vulnerability and risk mitigation, advancing good health and wellbeing, and analysing resilience measures for various Asian cities. Today, cities are the dominant human habitat, where a large number of environmental, social, cultural and economic factors have impacts on human health and wellbeing. Cities consist of complex, dynamic, socio-ecological, and technological systems that serve multiple functions in human health and wellbeing. Currently half of Asia’s population is urban, and that figure is expected to rise to 66 percent by 2050. Since urban areas are often most vulnerable to hazards, the people living in them need good health infrastructure facilities and technological support at various scales. As such, the need of the hour is to enhance the adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, reduce vulnerability, and take risk mitigation measures in urban areas, which requires a systematic approach based on science–policy interface that is transformative, trans-disciplinary and integrative for a sustainable urban future. Global sustainable development goals are closely tied to urban human health and wellbeing: (1) the third of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is to “Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” and (2) the eleventh is to “Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. By addressing these goals, this book offers a highly useful resource for anyone concerned with healthy and resilient cities in Asia, today and tomorrow.

Over 100 scientists, architects, journalists, artists and activists address creatively the unprecedented challenges facing an Urban Planet. This title is also available Open Access.

Modern urban planning emerged in response to public health challenges in the post-industrial revolution period in Europe. It has since evolved through the colonial and post-colonial phases of the 19th and 20th centuries with international, national, and local specificities. In the 21st century, human societies are rapidly urbanizing, even in LMICs where half or more of the population still live in rural areas. Therefore public policies that shape the nature of urbanization and urban habitats will become ever more critical to human and planetary health and wellbeing.

The perception of smart cities encompasses a strategy that uses different types of technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning and in which, through the internet of things (IoT) and sensor-based data collection, the strategy extrapolates information using insights gained from that data to manage or monitor or track assets, resources, and services efficiently in an urban area. Both these models deeply affect the localities where they are applied and can create together immense possibilities for urban recovery, better quality of life, physical and mental health protection, and economic and social redevelopment. Smart Cities and Machine Learning in Urban Health promotes interdisciplinary work that develops and illustrates the concept of resilience in relation to smart city and machine learning. The book examines the ability of an area and its communities to recover quickly from difficulties; the rigidness and resistance of an area and its communities to possible crisis; the ability of an area, its communities, infrastructure, and business to spring back into shape; and the responsiveness and mitigation towards the crisis with a special look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research’s theoretical foundation rests on a wide range of non-architectural sources, primarily AI, sociology, urban studies, and technological development, but it explores everything on cases taken from real cities, thus transforming them into pieces of architectural interest. Covering topics such as carbon emissions, digital healthcare systems, and urban transformation, this book is an essential resource for graduate and post-graduate students, policymakers, researchers, university faculty, engineers, public management, hospital administration, professors, and academicians.

Urban Health: A Global Perspective, Fifteenth Edition outlines the problems, issues, and solutions to health in urban areas on a global scale. The book focuses on several issues which impact the health of cities, such as the environment, pollution, climate change, ecology, social equity, health inequalities, and health problems. In addition, it covers several empirical studies which explain economic, political, and the social issues influencing health in urban areas. Pandemics and sustainable development will also be discussed. - Provides global case studies on the issues of urban health and air quality - Emphasizes the importance of health and sustainability from environmental pollution and climate change - Discusses principles from medical professionals and researchers on health in urban areas

The 15 international authors of this book live in Brazil, Canada, Cameroon, China, Cuba, European Union, Finland, Gaza Strip, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The authors are linked to the International Science Council’s Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme. In this book the authors analyse the management of COVID-19, which started in late 2019, in their cities. They explain their city’s political, social and economic context, the dynamics of how the pandemic unfolded, drawing on quantitative and visual data, and their reflections on how it was managed. The book concludes with an analysis of the similarities and differences among COVID-19 outcomes in these cities. Using a systems perspective to learn from these experiences can help all cities to improve the governance of pandemics and be better prepared for likely future ones.