Cities and the Health of the Public / Edition 1

by Nicholas Freudenberg, Sandro Galea, David Vlahov

Overview

The essays commissioned for this book analyze the impact of city living on health, focusing primarily on conditions in the United States. With 16 chapters by 24 internationally recognized experts, the book introduces an ecological approach to the study of the health of urban populations.

This book assesses the primary determinants of well-being in cities, including the social and physical environments, diet, and health care and social services. The book includes chapters on the history of public health in cities, the impact of urban sprawl and urban renewal on health, and the challenges facing cities in the developing world. It also examines conditions such as infectious diseases, violence and disasters, and mental illness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826515124
Publisher:	Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date:	07/21/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Vlahov is Director of the Center for Urban Epidemiological Studies, New York Academy of Medicine and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban Health.

Nicholas Freudenberg is Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Social Psychology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Sandro Galea is Associate Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Part I INTRODUCTION

A Framework for the Study of Urban Health Sandro Galea, Nicholas
Freudenberg, David Vlahov

Changing Living Conditions; Changing Health: US Cities in the Last 50 years
Nicholas Freudenberg, Sandro Galea, David Vlahov

Part II. DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH IN CITIES

The Urban Social Environment and Health Adam Coutts, Ichiro Kawachi

The Urban Physical Environment and Health Susan Klitzman, Thomas D. Matte, Daniel E Kass

Food, Nutrition and the Health of Urban Populations Ming -Chin Yeh, David Katz

Access to Quality Health Care in U.S. Cities: Balancing Community Need and
Service System Survival Dennis Andrulis

Part III. LOCAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGING CITIES

Public Health in U.S. Cities: A Historical Perspective David Rosner

Cities, Suburbs, and Urban Sprawl: Their Impact on Health Howard Frumkin

Fifty Ways to Destroy a City: The Health Impact of Urban Destruction Mindy
Fullilove

A Developing World Perspective: Health, Water and Sanitation in Urban Areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean Gordon McGranhan and
David Satterthwaite

Part IV. HEALTH OUTCOMES AND DETERMINANTS

Changing Patterns of Infectious Disease in U.S. Cities David Vlahov, Emily
Gibble

The Challenge of Urban Violence and Disasters Kenneth J. Ruggiero, Amy Van
Wynsberghe, Tomika Stevens, Dean G. Kilpatrick

Mental Health in the City Ezra Susser, Michaeline Bresnahan, Sandro Galea

Part V. NEXT STEPS: RESEARCH AND INTERVENTION

Methodologies for the Study of Urban Health: How Do We Best Assess How Cities
Affect Health? Sandro Galea, Amy Schulz

Health Promotion in the City: The Science and Politics of Intervention Nicholas
Freudenberg

Creating Healthy Cities: Where Do We Go from Here? David Vlahov, Sandro
Galea, Nicholas Freudenberg

Editorial Reviews

"The relationship between urban residence and health is highly complex, and it is becoming increasingly so . . . This difficult subject is addressed in this book . . . a book that will be of interest to social scientists but also worth consulting for physicians with practices that involve urban health."
—New England Journal of Medicine

". . . a significant contribution to furthering urban public practice and research."
—Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved

"The articles in Cities and the Health of the Public place contemporary threats to urban health in the context of both historical and current trends affecting city dwellers. The 16 chapters highlight mostly US urban public health issues. Contributors are prominent researchers in urban health, including leading social epidemiologist Ichiro Kawachi and psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove, whose keen scientific intellect and lyrical style add flesh and blood to her descriptions of people displaced by natural and human-caused calamities. Issues covered include access to health care, food security, urban sprawl, and mental health. The editors also contribute several of the chapters. . . . All three are central to the effort to make the study of urban health and people who live in cities a scientific discipline with its own literature and organizations. . . . Cities and the Health of the Public is organized . . . like an introductory textbook . . . those who are interested in urban health will find it to be a valuable resource.
—Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)

". . . a wonderful synthesis of recent scholarship on urban health from a variety of disciplines. . . . it will become a classic reference text for this rapidly developing field. . . . The genius of this book is that it m makes an enormously complex subject understandable and available not only to public health practitioners but to those in medicine, nursing, social work, and the wide spectrum of disciplines that are necessary to understand and improve the health of the world's communities."
—Preventive Medicine

From the Publisher