Health and the Urban: Multiple Threads Interconnecting Health in the City

Abstract

Urban scenarios have been analyzed based on the problems due to the changes that drive the historical transformations of society, such as growing urbanization and impact on morbidity-mortality rates, and in the health status of the population. Such trends point out that becoming ill is closely related to socioeconomic-environmental conditions, and also leads to a series of challenges for defining strategic plans of Multilateral Government Agencies (“Global Agendas”). These “Agendas” have emphasized central themes such as “sustainable development”, “urban agenda”, “climate change”, “urban health”, “healthy cities”. In the present chapter we analyze the relationship between “health” and “urban” in six Global Agendas: (1) “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Environment”; (2) “New Urban Agenda”; (3) “Intergovernmental Expert Group on Climate Change”; (4) “Shanghai Consensus on Healthy Cities”; (5) “National healthy cities networks in the WHO European—Promoting health and well-being throughout Europe”; and (6) “Integration of Background Documents for the Strategy and Plan of Action on Urban Health for the Americas”. As a result of the analysis, we saw that health emerges in these plans with multiple interfaces such as: health and environment; migration and health; access to health services; local governance; urban planning and policies; violence; poverty and vulnerability; health equity. The six documents analyzed acknowledge the mutual relationship between “health” and “urban”, although this understanding is not convergent among them. Some consider urban as a health determinant and pursue an evidence base for the interconnection, while others see health as a weak link of a potentially harmful urbanization. There still are many questions on the operational framework that crosses health and urban among the global agendas selected.