Urban Ecology and Health in the Third World / Edition 1

by Lawrence M. Schell, Malcolm Smith, Alan Bilsborough

Overview

This volume looks at the relationship between specific aspects of Third World cities and human health. Rapid and extensive urbanization of the less developed nations is perhaps the most dramatic demographic phenomenon of our times, but its impact on human biology is not well understood. Here, a cross-section of work is presented on this subject allowing human biologists, urban planners, public health workers, and other specialists to assess our knowledge and the current approaches available to increase it. Contributions fall into two groups: studies of urban ecology including the social, economic and physical domains, and studies of biological responses to the urban environment. Health is not merely the absence of specific diseases, but is construed more broadly to include a wide range of biological parameters that are correlated with various states of suboptimal health. These include patterns of child growth and development, frequencies of specific diseases, nutritional status, immunological characteristics and physiological parameters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521411592
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/21/1993
Series:	Society for the Study of Human Biology Symposium Series , #32
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Schell, Lawrence M. (Univ of Albany); Smith, Malcolm T. (Univ of Durham); Bilsborough, Alan (Univ of Durham)

The contributors are an eclectic group of dermatologists, physicians, anthropologists, geographers, public health specialists, sociologists, and nutritionists from the U.S., the U.K., South Africa, France, Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, New Guinea, Zaire, and Australia.

Table of Contents

1. Human biological approaches to the study of Third World urbanism; 2. Social and cultural influences in the risk of cardiovascular disease in urban Brazil; 3. The urban disadvantage in the developing world and the physical and mental growth of children; 4. Differences in endocrine status associated with urban-rural patterns of growth and maturation in Bundi (Gende speaking) adolescents of Papua New Guinea; 5. Nutritionally vulnerable households in the urban slum economy: a case study from Khulna, Bangladesh; 6. Urban-rural differences in growth and diarrhoeal morbidity of Filipino infants; 7. Child health and growth in urban South Africa; 8. From countryside to town in Morocco: ecology, culture and public health; 9. Urban-rural population research: a town like Alice; 10. Selection for rural-to-urban migrants in Guatemala; 11. Health and nutrition in Mixtec Indians; 12. Urban health and ecology in Bunia, N-E Zaire, with special reference to the physical development of children; 13. Food for thought: meeting a basic need for low income urban residents; 14. Immunological parameters in north-east Arnhem Land Aborigines: consequences of changing settlement patterns and lifestyles; 15. Amerindians and the price of modernization; 16. Sex ratio determinants in Indian populations: studies at national, state and district levels; 17. Polarization and depolarization in Africa; 18. Urbanization in the Third World: health policy implications; Index.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Swailem S. Hennein, Ph.D.(University of Illinois at Chicago)
Description: This book reports on multidisciplinary research work exploring the interaction between urban ecology and human biology and health.
Purpose: Its purpose is to explore and help define for further scientific effort a very important phenomenon of our times, to understand the dynamics of urbanization/urbanism and its impact on human physical development and well-being.
Audience: The target audience includes professionals and students of health sciences, urban sociologists, anthropologists, engineers, geographers, economists, and policymakers.
Features: Features include relevant data presentations and analysis, challenging questions and issues, bibliographic lists, and an adequate index. Helpful black-and-white llustrations are included.
Assessment: This is an 18-chapter book to which 43 professionals belonging to almost as many fields of scholarship contributed. It represents some of their best efforts to a field of research that is still tenuous, thus leaving the inquisitive reader with more questions unanswered than answered. Thus the quest for better understanding of the interaction between ecology and biology continues. In this sense, it is a valuable production as the exploration continues for many years to come.

Doody's Review Service

"...a valuable production as the exploration continues for many years to come." Swailem S. Hennein, Doody's

"One of the main strengths of the volume is that most contributors go beyond a simple urban-rural comparison to assess the effects of urbanization. A theme that runs through the book is the variation that exists in both urban and rural environments and the important effects that this variation has on health....The approach to urbanization taken by the contributors to this book is an important one for human biologists." Sara Stinson, American Journal of Physical Anthropology

From the Publisher

3 Stars from Doody

This book reports on multidisciplinary research work exploring the interaction between urban ecology and human biology and health. Its purpose is to explore and help define for further scientific effort a very important phenomenon of our times, to understand the dynamics of urbanization/urbanism and its impact on human physical development and well-being. The target audience includes professionals and students of health sciences, urban sociologists, anthropologists, engineers, geographers, economists, and policymakers. Features include relevant data presentations and analysis, challenging questions and issues, bibliographic lists, and an adequate index. Helpful black-and-white llustrations are included. This is an 18-chapter book to which 43 professionals belonging to almost as many fields of scholarship contributed. It represents some of their best efforts to a field of research that is still tenuous, thus leaving the inquisitive reader with more questions unanswered than answered. Thus the quest for better understanding of the interaction between ecology and biology continues. In this sense, it is a valuable production as the exploration continues for many years to come.

Swailem S. Hennein