Abstract
Cities around the world face many environmental health challenges including contamination of air, water and soil, traffic congestion and noise, and poor housing conditions exacerbated by unsustainable urban development and climate change. Integrated assessment of these risks offers opportunities for holistic, low carbon solutions in the urban environment that can bring multiple benefits for public health. The Healthy-Polis consortium aims to protect and promote urban health through multi-disciplinary, policy-relevant research on urban environmental health and sustainability. We are doing this by promoting improved methods of health risk assessment, facilitating international collaboration, contributing to the training of research scientists and students, and engaging with key stakeholders in government, local authorities, international organisations, industry and academia. A major focus of the consortium is to promote and support international research projects coordinated between two or more countries. The disciplinary areas represented in the consortium are many and varied, including environmental epidemiology, modelling and exposure assessment, system dynamics, health impact assessment, multi-criteria decision analysis, and other quantitative and qualitative approaches. This Healthy-Polis special issue presents a range of case studies and reviews that illustrate the need for a systems-based understanding of the urban environment.
Highlights
Rapid urbanization, combined with rapid improvement in standards of living is stretching natural resources and threatening environmental quality in many countries
System dynamics approaches [15] and multi-criteria decision analysis methods [16] integrating quantitative and qualitative evidence can help characterise the likely overall impacts of policy options in urban environments. This is the approach adopted by Healthy-Polis, a new international consortium for urban environmental health and sustainability which aims to: (1) promote innovation and standardization in research methods, (2) facilitate international, multidisciplinary research collaborations, (3) provide training and promote capacity building especially in rapidly urbanizing countries, and (4) evaluate and promote environmental interventions to improve public health in cities
Key areas of interest (Fig. 1) were discussed at the 1st HealthyPolis workshop in Manchester, U.K. (6 March 2014). In this special issue of Environmental Health, we present twelve contributions that address the aims of the Healthy-Polis consortium using methods from many disciplines
Summary
Rapid urbanization, combined with rapid improvement in standards of living is stretching natural resources and threatening environmental quality in many countries. Relevant areas include the assessment and reduction of the health risks and impacts of weather extremes, air pollution, water contamination and other forms of environmental hazard, especially in the context of climate change, and evaluating mitigation and adaptation options [13] These challenges highlight the need for integrated assessment methods that account for the complex interactions (including feedback loops) between climatic, environmental and behavioural factors, and the urban fabric [14]. System dynamics approaches [15] and multi-criteria decision analysis methods [16] integrating quantitative and qualitative evidence can help characterise the likely overall impacts of policy options in urban environments This is the approach adopted by Healthy-Polis (www.healthy-polis.org), a new international consortium for urban environmental health and sustainability which aims to: (1) promote innovation and standardization in research methods (including exposure modelling, environmental epidemiology, risk analysis and integrated assessment methods), (2) facilitate international, multidisciplinary research collaborations, (3) provide training and promote capacity building especially in rapidly urbanizing countries, and (4) evaluate and promote environmental interventions to improve public health in cities. Rietveld et al [28] argue for a systems approach to water and waste management in cities, illustrating their points with case studies from three continents
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