Description: Today, we know cities as shared spaces with the potential to both threaten and promote human health: while urban areas are known to amplify the transmission of epidemics like Ebola, urban residency is also associated with longer, healthier lives. Modern cities encompass a wide ecology of infrastructures, institutions and services that impact health, from access to improved sanitation and early childhood education to the design of buildings and transportation systems. So how has this centuries-long transformation in human settlement affected the mindset surrounding public health research and practice?
Urban Public Health is an interdisciplinary collaboration from experts across the globe that approaches the issue of urban health research from a uniquely public health orientation. The carefully crafted and thoughtful chapters in this volume grapple with the complexity of the urban setting as a physical and social space while also providing an abundance of global and local examples of current urban health practices. Urban Public Health is divided into four pragmatic sections which cover core conceptual models of public health and their inequities, methods of urban health research assessment, methods of urban health research analysis and explanation, and ultimately, opportunities for urban health research to inform action through partnership and collaboration, including those which elevate community voices and capacities. An accessible guide for both students and researchers alike, Urban Public Health shines a light on how to understand, measure and change the urban setting so that cities grow, people thrive, and no one is left behind.Review Quotes:
"A treasure-trove of lessons in urban public health research from the most urbanized regions of the world, Urban Public Health offers a comprehensive guide to urban health research from theoretical frameworks to practical considerations. By adopting a population health approach, the authors foreground the diverse systems for health that can support or undermine health in cities. The detailed expos�� of updates to research methods for urban health are overdue additions to the scientific landscape, and a must for the conduct of policy-informed and contextually relevant research for healthy sustainable cities globally."
-- Tolullah Oni, Public Health Physician and Urban Epidemiologist, Research Initiative for Cities Health and Equity (RICHE Africa), University of Cambridge, and University of Cape Town
"This book is an important contribution to the study of urban health. By its careful exposition of the tools of science, including definitions and methods, it establishes a coherent base to guide future exploration. Urban Public Health will serve scholars and students alike and should be required reading in all urban health courses."
-- Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Professor of Urban Policy and Health, The New School