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Implication of Health and Environment in Urban Areas

Developing countries throughout the world are experiencing rapid urbanization and

industrialization, which greatly influence the public health problems that these countries confront

and their urban areas face. Although urban environments are more contaminated by heavy

metals, arsenic, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins than most rural agricultural areas,evidence is lacking for adverse health outcomes in urban areas. A legacy of environmental

pollution linked to former industrial activities, coal burning, motor vehicle emissions, waste

incineration and dumping. Local authorities and environmental protection agencies have focused

considerable attention on assessment and management of the potential health risks of urban

areas. However, these gains in environmental quality have been overshadowed by the rapidly

escalating public health crisis of obesity linked to poor diet and lack of exercise. The lethal

combination of 'gluttony and sloth' resulting from excessive consumption of saturated fats and

inadequate consumption of vegetables and fruit, together with increasingly sedentary lifestyles

are amongst the most significant preventable contributors to cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis,

diabetes and some cancers.

Urban planning that prioritizes humans over vehicles will not only help to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions through a reduction in fossil fuel use but will lead towards better and more equitable

health outcomes. The design of a city to be easily walkable, safe and with adequate provision of

cycle lanes and public transport corridors and hubs, in all parts of the city, will help improve

health equity and reduce GHG emissions. Ensuring parks, green spaces and road side trees as

part of the basic urban infrastructure will help regulate city temperatures thus helping them cope

with extreme heat as a result of climate change and act as carbon sinks. Ensuring such areas are

safe and clean will also encourage people to walk more, thereby helping to reduce the risk of

obesity, traffic related injuries, air pollution and respiratory diseases. Such urban design also

encourages people to be more socially connected thus helping to reduce the risk of poor mental

health. Green space may also help reduce health inequities - Research found that those

populations exposed to greenest environments had the lowest levels of socio-economic

inequalities in health (Mitchell and Popham 2008). Adapting cities to extreme temperatures from

climate change through the design of pedestrian side-walks to include roofs and shady trees also

encourages walking instead of driving, with similar health consequence as above (Woodcock et

al. 2007).

Cities can begin to adapt to the impacts of climate change via effective urban management.

Planning and land use controls can prevent people from building in zones at risk of flooding and

landslides (e.g., restrictions on building within 50 year floodplains in South Africa.

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Because of the circumstances in which people grow, live, work, and age, and the systems put in place to

deal with illness. There is thus a strong correlation between living conditions and health: Where people

live affects their health and chances of leading flourishing lives. For example, average male life

expectancy at birth in Glasgow (for the 1998-2002 period) ranged from 82 years in the affluent suburb of

Lenzie North to 54 years in the deprived inner city area of Calton. Another example is that children living

in a squatter area are nine times more likely to have tuberculosis than non-squatter children in Manila,

Philippines. South African studies found that the HIV prevalence of those living in urban informal areas

was double that of formal urban settlements.

The healthy cities movement that was initiated in the 1980s highlighted the relationship of the urban

environment and health and the role of local government in promoting health at a city scale.Although

social and economic conditions are important, there is a growing body of work, across various disciplines

that recognise the role of the physical urban environment in shaping health and disease and thus in

contributing to existing health inequities.

The various ways in which the physical urban environment can directly impact on health and health

equity include the following:

y The extent to which the physical urban environment facilitates equitable access to the benefits ofurban life (livelihood opportunities, facilities, etc.)

y The extent to which the physical urban environment facilitates access to adequate housing(shelter, basic services, etc.)

y The extent to which the physical urban environment provides a safe living environment (i.e. withlow risk of injuries and few negative impacts on mental health)

y The extent to which the physical urban environment facilitates food security and healthy nutritiony The extent to which the physical urban environment facilitates physical activity.y The extent to which the physical urban environment facilitates access to a healthy natural

environment.

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Urbanization is a major component of global environmental change, while at the same time global

environmental change poses threats to urban areas. Especially given the rapid pace of urban growth

in middle and low income countries, there is an urgent need to understand the bi-directional

interactions between urbanization and global environmental change processes.The increasing

scale of environmental change can result in loss of ecosystem services, desertification and

flooding of low-lying river delta regions; loss of land due to sea-level rise, shoreline erosion and

coastal flooding; impaired crop production and increased severity and frequency of climate-

related natural disasters (IPCC 2007). These pressures allied with the persistence of poverty and

disadvantage in many countries and the prospect of job opportunities will promote communities

and persons to move away from situations of danger, decline or despair and may further enhance

the drive towards larger cities (UNHCR 2009). The number of environmental refugees may well

be in the hundreds of millions by mid-century (IPCC 2007).The rate of urban growth in low and

middle income countries is expected to increase rapidly in the coming decades. This poses both a

challenge and opportunity to manage city growth in these countries in such a way that it

increases health equity, reduces poverty, and builds communities that live within environmentallimits. The challenge for existing cities everywhere is how to ensure all, not just the more

powerful groups in society are able to resist the impacts of existing environmental and climate

change.

What do we mean by climate change mitigation and adaptation?

Climate change mitigation is concerned with measures or actions to reduce global warming and

most often involves reductions in the concentration of greenhouse gases. Adaptation on the other

hand is about enhancing resilience or reducing peoples vulnerabilities to observed or expected

changes in climate. Adaptive capacity is the potential of a system or population to modify its

features or behaviour to cope better with existing and anticipated climate-related stresses.

Climate change mitigation policies and practices, depending on how they are developed and

implemented, have the potential to reduce urban health inequities.

Thus, we can conclude that there is a strong relation between urban health and the management

of urban environment for the sustainability of the urban areas. A well managed and protected

urban environment with optimum green areas will lead to improved urban health. The role of

urban planning is to understand this and take rational decisions so that implications of urban

health and environment can be mitigated in the existing and new developing urban areas.

Shashikant Nishant Sharma

B.Planning,3rd

Year

School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi