Going Biophilic

Green building design has emerged as a global force, with one green building standard reporting more than 3.5 billion square feet certified worldwide. Green buildings focus on reducing environmental impact through improved water storage, reducing environmental perturbation, and reducing energy usage. Although the environmental benefits of green building design are now well established, it is only more recently that the field has come to appreciate the health benefits of green building design. This chapter discusses the green building movement and the challenges and opportunities it represents, with lessons that can be learned and are generalizable to urban health scholarship and action worldwide.

Case Studies in Urban Health

A project of the Africa Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), the Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System was set up to provide a platform to explore the linkages between urban poverty and health and to monitor and evaluate novel implementation programs that were developed with the study communities. In this chapter, the authors draw on nearly two decades of work by APHRC among slum populations in Nairobi, Kenya, to highlight the unique health challenges of slum populations and how these are changing. The chapter summarizes various efforts to improve health in Nairobi’s informal settlements since 2000 and discusses efforts in Nairobi to improve health in a large city in sub-Saharan Africa, summarizing lessons that have been learned in improving urban health worldwide.

Richmond, California

Richmond, California, has been a pioneer in developing neighborhood-based, built environment interventions that aim to improve multiple determinants of health and reduce health inequalities for its diverse urban population. Projects such as the renovation of Pogo Park and the development of the RYSE commons have involved community participation, with the ultimate aim of developing healthy urban spaces. In many ways, Richmond has led the way on healthy urban planning and policy that is responsive to community needs. This chapter discusses the work being conducted in Richmond, highlighting challenges and opportunities for lessons that can inform urban health efforts worldwide.

Urban Design

The features of the urban built environment influence the daily activities and health behaviors of people living in cities. Thus, it is possible to design cities in ways that can reduce poor health and support the well-being of urban residents. Urban design is the framework that gives form and shape to the components of the urban physical environment, including streets, residences, retail outlets, and industrial facilities. In giving form to the urban physical environment an urban design perspective creates an opportunity to shape cities and, in so doing, to shape how cities influence the health of their populations. This chapter introduces an urban design perspective and offer examples of how an urban design lens can help us understand urban health to the end of improving the health of urban populations.

Social Networks

One of the distinguishing features of urban environments is the close proximity of their residents. There is ample evidence that our social networks influence how we think, feel, and behave and, through doing so, shape our health. Therefore, the challenge and opportunity for urban areas is how to foster social relationships and interactions that promote healthier behaviors, reduce the risk of disease transmission, and remove or serve as buffers against existing barriers to health service utilization. This chapter provides a theoretical framework for thinking about the role of social networks in public health and provides two examples how social network analysis has been used to better understand two major public health concerns in urban settings.

Climate Change and the Health of Urban Populations

Global climate change represents one of the sentinel changes the world is facing and that will threaten population health in this century. In the context of urban health, climate change threatens to increase urban heat island effects, to change exposure to pollution, and to increase urban residents’ risk of exposure to natural disasters, among other phenomena. And yet urban innovation is central to the longer term solution to climate change from the development of innovative approaches that reduce cities’ carbon footprint to initiatives that increase urban resilience in the face of climate change threats. This chapter discusses the threat that climate change poses for urban populations and potential approaches that can mitigate this challenge toward improving urban health.

Healthy Places to Play, Learn, and Develop

The urban environment is characterized by human-made spaces, by environments that are created to allow large numbers of people to coexist. These spaces literally shape where and how we play and work, representing an enormous opportunity for urban spaces to influence all aspects of our daily life—including our health. Although abundant urban areas have emerged over the past decades that disincentivize healthy living, innovation around the world is providing examples of approaches to urban design that generates healthy and safe places to play and work. This chapter provides a framework for thinking about the creation of urban spaces, about how the physical environment influences health, and how, to that end, we can create healthy physical environments to improve the health of urban populations.

Why Cities and Health?

Urban health is concerned with understanding how features of cities influence the health of urban populations, thus pointing the way to interventions that can improve health. An understanding of urban health requires a grounding in the fundamentals of causal thinking. How do cities influence the health of populations? And what is unique or uniquely interesting about urban health? This chapter addresses these questions through providing a conceptual framework to organize and guide thinking. The authors explicate how we may think of urban living as a ubiquitous exposure influencing other factors to which urban residents are exposed and that have a profound influence on the health of these residents.

Teaching Urban Health

As urban health comes into full flower as a field of inquiry, the future of the field lies squarely with the next generation of scholars who embrace urban health as their metier. Creating healthier, more equitable, and sustainable cities globally requires an urban health workforce with the knowledge, skills, and capacity needed to achieve those goals. This chapter discusses the state of the science in urban health teaching, drawing both on specific examples and on pedagogic theory to illustrate how we may best contribute to the creation of the next generation of scholars in urban health.

Boston

Understanding the history of a place is essential for incorporating local concerns and values into decision-making. Most important, history is present whether we acknowledge it or not. Creating change and improving the lives and health of the public demands effective public policies. These policies must rest on the foundation of a city’s or neighborhood’s history. Channeling new development, preserving and protecting health, and meeting challenges posed by changing environmental conditions need the participation and support of thousands of people. These issues are never discussed in a vacuum, and no problems are solved without regard to history and memory. The Boston experience highlights the need for careful consideration of present conditions in order to prepare for the unknown future. This chapter discusses Boston as a case study, aiming to understand how history shapes cities and creates health in urban populations.