World Health Organization Healthy Cities Research Articles

Co-Benefits of Transdisciplinary Planning for Healthy Cities

Synergies between urban planning and public health were synthesized a decade ago by the Lancet Commission’s article “Shaping Cities for Health: Complexity and the Planning of Urban Environments in the 21st Century.” Since then, innovative research projects, urban planning projects, and accumulated experience from the World Health Organization Healthy Cities project confirm that transdisciplinary contributions enable the achievement of core principles of healthy cities. This article clarifies important differences between the content, scope, and outcomes of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects about public health and urban planning. It explains why transdisciplinary contributions are more likely to bridge the applicability gap between knowledge and practice in response to persistent urban health challenges; notably, they transgress the boundaries of public health and medical science; they prioritize political action in both the formal and informal construction sectors; and they include citizens, community associations, and private enterprises as partners in consortia for concerted action. This article proposes a radical shift from incremental, reactive, and corrective approaches in planning for urban health to proactive and anticipative contributions using backcasting and alternative scenarios that prioritize health. The article uses the case of public green spaces in planning for urban health. It identifies the shortcomings of many empirical studies that are meant to promote and sustain health before describing and illustrating an alternative way forward.

On the Internet of Things, smart cities and the WHO Healthy Cities

This article gives a brief overview of the Internet of Things (IoT) for cities, offering examples of IoT-powered 21st century smart cities, including the experience of the Spanish city of Barcelona in implementing its own IoT-driven services to improve the quality of life of its people through measures that promote an eco-friendly, sustainable environment. The potential benefits as well as the challenges associated with IoT for cities are discussed. Much of the 'big data' that are continuously generated by IoT sensors, devices, systems and services are geo-tagged or geo-located. The importance of having robust, intelligent geospatial analytics systems in place to process and make sense of such data in real time cannot therefore be overestimated. The authors argue that IoT-powered smart cities stand better chances of becoming healthier cities. The World Health Organization (WHO) Healthy Cities Network and associated national networks have hundreds of member cities around the world that could benefit from, and harness the power of, IoT to improve the health and well-being of their local populations.

Russian city offers health pursuits for all ages

For 88-year-old Zoya Marinich, who lives in the south-western Russian city of Stavropol, the turning point came with a phone call. was invited to meet Vasily Skakun, a man who trained 17 world champion gymnasts recalls the retired teacher. Seventy-six at the time of the call, Zoya was not planning to take up vaulting, but she was interested in getting healthy again. Zoya had seen her share of physical hardship, including working hard on a farm as a girl before the Second World War and, during the war, torture as a partisan while the city was occupied from August 1942 to January 1943. But what had really taken its toll on her health were decades of physical inactivity and unhealthy eating, a combination that resulted in what Zoya calls a bouquet of health problems, including heart disease and chronic muscular pain. Zoya is one of thousands of people in the Russian Federation, a vast country of 141 million people stretching from central Europe to the Pacific Ocean, who have multiple chronic health problems. Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for an estimated 82% of all deaths in the country. Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and stroke, accounts for 62% of those deaths--higher than the global average of 48%--while cancer causes almost 15% of them. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To treat her health problems, Zoya had always relied on medicines provided by her but she was not optimistic. realized that I would not survive on pills alone, she says. Then the telephone rang. One of the classes offered by the Vastly Skakun Academy was yoga, and Zoya Marinich hit the mat. Skakun's efforts are part of a citywide drive to reduce the high toll of NCDs. is one of about 100 cities in 30 countries across the European Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) that have joined the international Healthy Cities movement. The initiative, started by WHO's Regional Office for Europe in 1986, aims to promote healthy lifestyles, create healthy living conditions and combat the NCD epidemic in the 53-country region. Stavropol is a dynamic member of the Healthy Cities movement in the Russian Federation and in the European network as a whole, says Dr Agis Tsouros, the director of policy and governance for health and well-being at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. established a Healthy Cities project office in 2006. But, as Dr Karen Amlaev, WHO Healthy Cities campaign coordinator in points out, the city has been involved in activities of the Healthy Cities Association since 1996. would have been a sin not to do so, since the deputy mayor of on social issues was a doctor, he says, referring to Valentina Muravyova, who is now rector of the Medical University. Amlaev firmly believes that these activities, which are funded by the city authorities and provided free of charge to all, are already making a difference to the population's health. The main thrust of Stavropol's efforts is to reduce risk factors for NCDs by raising awareness among people of all ages regarding unhealthy behaviours such as smoking and by providing free health services, such as drop-in clinics to measure blood pressure. The Russian Federation has one of the highest smoking rates in the world, at around 40%, and each year an estimated 398 000 Russian citizens die from tobacco-related causes, according to the WHO global report: mortality attributable to tobacco--the equivalent of the entire population of the city of Stavropol. The Healthy Cities campaign is reaching children by distributing a comic with anti-tobacco messaging. It has been such a success that it is now in its fourth edition. The involvement of local media has been central to the campaign, including interviews with health experts on local radio stations and a regular column in Vecherny Stavropol, a local evening newspaper on health issues. …

Mixing Urban Health Research Methods for Best Fit

Mixing Urban Health Research Methods for Best Fit

Urban Environmental Health Indicators: Appraisal and Policy Directives

What are environmental health indicators? How are they defined and used by professionals involved in monitoring trends in cities and towns? How have indicators been applied at municipal and national levels by policy decision makes and practitioners to measure and monitor living conditions, health status and the effectiveness of interventions in urban areas? This review article is meant to answer these questions. It presents a review and assessment of the main developments related to environmental and housing indicators since 1990, and how they have been used to measure and monitor health and well-being. The most important programs are referenced, such as the two sets of indicators formulated and tested during the 1990s under the auspices of the World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project. Finally, a set of recommendations that warrant consideration in the immediate future are presented.

Health Promotion and New Public Health. Healthy Cities Projects.

This is a review article on "Healthy Cities". The Healthy Cities programme has been developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to tackle urban health and environmental issues in a broad way. It is a kind of comprehensive policy package to carry out individual projects and activities effectively and efficiently. Its key aspects include healthy public policy, vision sharing, high political commitment, establishment of structural organization, strategic health planning, intersectoral collaboration, community participation, setting approach, development of supportive environment for health, formation of city health profile, national and international networking, participatory research, periodic monitoring and evaluation, and mechanisms for sustainability of projects. The present paper covered the Healthy Cities concept and approaches, rapid urbanization in the world, developments of WHO Healthy Cities, Healthy Cities developments in the Western Pacific Region, the health promotion viewpoint, and roles of research.

Practical lessons in using indicators of determinants of health across 47 European cities

A survey was conducted of 47 European cities applying to join the third phase of the World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project. The survey tested the feasibility of recording baseline information on health-promoting processes and activities in the cities. A broad multi-sectoral focus for health in the questionnaire presented formidable challenges to respondents. Despite goodwill and local networks, the quality of certain responses was variable. Socio-economic statistics are not universally available at city level; however, descriptive responses about services and health promotion yielded uniquely useful local information over the national level. Survey responses were not comparable across cities and such interpretation would be counter-productive. Recommendations for future surveys are made. Key words: city health; determinants of health; indicators; measures

Characteristics of Pregnant Women, Utilization, and Satisfaction with Prenatal Services in St. Petersburg, Russia

A descriptive study with a convenience sample of 47 subjects drawn from two birthing houses was conducted in St. Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of the World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project. Data were collected with a self-administered questionnaire given to women in birthing houses after delivery and prior to discharge. Subjects ranged in age from 16 to 38 years. Sixty-one percent of women began prenatal care within the 1st trimester, 35% within the 2nd trimester, and 2% received no prenatal care. Younger women were more likely than older women to start prenatal care in the 1st trimester, but received less teaching by health care providers. Younger women also expressed more stress and need for counseling. In addition, 83% of low-birthweight babies were born to younger women. These findings indicate a focus by health care personnel on older pregnant women, although younger pregnant women were at higher risk for poor pregnancy outcome. The strongest statistically significant correlations were found among the patient satisfaction variables, indicating that satisfaction with prenatal services may influence when women begin prenatal care services.

The Healthy Cities Project: A Challenge for Health Education

The World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project assists participating cities in developing and implementing plans to create health promoting policies, programs, and environmental conditions. The project, which has its origins in the strategy of Health for All by Year 2000, seeks to bring the rhetoric down to earth and ground it in policy and practice. So far the project has been very successful in interesting and involving people at the local level. What began as a small European project in 1986 has become part of a global movement four years later. This movement is based on a recognition of the ecological context of health and the need to reconcile human lifestyles with their environmental and planetary impact. In the process of involving many people from nonmedical sectors in urban health promotion, the continuing relevance of health education to public health is becoming apparent. The challenge to Health Education is to broaden its perspective from the individual and biological, to the social and environmental if it is to play a full part in tackling the ecological crises which confront us.