Handbook of Urban Health

About this textbook

As more people worldwide live in cities, increasingly we need to understand how cities and city living affect population health. Does city living negatively affect health? Conversely, can city living enhance population health and well-being?

Over forty experts from around the world bring a depth of ideas to the Handbook of Urban Health, making the Handbook a focused resource for a range of health disciplines. The Handbook presents:

--A discussion of the health of specific urban populations, among them immigrants, children, the elderly, racial and sexual minorities, the homeless, and the poor.

--Methods relevant to the study of urban health including epidemiology, research methods, funding and policy issues, urban planning

--Practical issues for developing healthy cities including interventions, preventive strategies, providing health services, and teaching urban health

--International perspectives from developing countries and the World Health Organization

--Integrative chapters that conclude each of the book’s sections, bringing together theoretical models with the big picture.

A unique professional idea book, research resource, and teaching text, the Handbook of Urban Health challenges readers to consider the role that cities plays in shaping population health and to generate solutions that can make cities healthier places for all those who live there.

Written for: Professionals in public health and health, graduate-level students

Keywords:

• cities
• developing countries
• drug abuse
• homelessness
• immigrant health
• minority health
• social determinants of health
• urban planning

Reviews

"This book takes a broad view of urban health, emphasizing urban social factors important to population health. The editors successfully bridge urban health inquiry and public health practice by combining descriptions of issues in urban health, methods used in urban health studies, and examples from practitioners.... Promoting health in cities requires an appreciation of the multiple levels of determinants that shape population health, and this handbook is a good starting point for such appreciation." (Tord Kjellstrom, Visiting Professor of Swedish National Institute of Public Health and Visiting Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University (Environmental Health Perspectives, January 2006)

"Handbook of Urban Health soundly provides the fundamentals on urban health for a wide audience. It will assist health care practitioners in better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of various types of research methods. It is hoped that this book will not sit closed on reference shelves but lie open on desks as it is used to improve the health of all people in our urban world." (Russ Lopez, ScD., MCRP, Journal of the American Medical Association, November 3, 2005)

"With its reasonably complete summaries of current knowledge in the area, it is a useful teaching guide and a well-references resource for students, practitioners, and academicians. It covers a remarkably broad range of topics with brief, mostly well-written overviews by academicians and practitioners from across the United States, and it provides an extensive list of references and resources for each topic for readers who want or need more detail." (Howard Spivak, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine, April 20, 2006)

"This well-written, well-organized edited volume is a fairly comprehensive handbook on both the research methodology and practice of urban health. … This is an excellent reference book for anyone working on or studying urban health, policy or planning. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above." (K. H. Jacobsen, CHOICE, March, 2006)

Table of contents

An introduction to urban health

1. Urban Health: Population, methods, and practice
Sandro Galea, David Vlahov

Section I: Populations

2. Homeless people
Stephen W. Hwang, James R. Dunn

3. Health of economically deprived populations in cities
Patricia O’Campo, Michael Yonas

4. Racial/ethnic minority and health: the role of the urban environment
Luisa N. Borrell, Stephani L. Hatch

5. Sexual minority groups and urban health
Ruth Finkelstein, Julie Netherland

6. Health and health access among urban immigrants
Sana Loue, Nancy Mendez

7. The urban environment, drug use, and health
Danielle Ompad, Crystal Fuller

8. The health of children in cities
M. Chris Gibbons, Vijay Singh, Kisha Braithwaite, Bernard Guyer

9. Older adults: Guardians of our cities
Linda Fried, Jeremy Barron

10. The health of urban populations in developing countries: an overview
Mark R. Montgomery, Alex C. Ezeh

11. Perspectives on the health of urban populations in Nepal
Tej Kumar Karki

12. Integrative chapter: The health of urban populations

The Editors

Section II: Methods

13. An anthropological perspective on urban health
Frances K. Barg,Jane Kauer

14. Epidemiology and urban health research
Sandro Galea, David Vlahov

15. Design and analysis of group (or neighborhood) level urban studies
Donald Hoover

16. Health services research in the city
Michael K. Gusmano,Victor G. Rodwin

17. Urban health in developing countries: insights from demographic theory and practice
Mark R. Montgomery, Alex C. Ezeh

18. Urban sociology and research methods on neighborhoods and health
Joseph A. Soares

19. Bridging the gap between urban health and urban planning
Marlon G. Boarnet, Lois M. Takahashi

20. Environmental health studies: Environmental health methods for urban health
Jonathan M. Samet, Joseph H. Abraham

21. Cost-effectiveness analysis for urban health research
Ahmed M. Bayoumi

22. Integrative chapter: Multi-disciplinary work and the study of urban health

The Editors

Section III: Practice

23. Building healthy cities: A focus on interventions
Jan C. Semenza

24. Building healthy cities: The World Health Organization perspective
Roderick J. Lawrence

25. Building healthy cities: Legal frameworks and considerations
Wendy C. Perdue

26. Teaching urban health
Nicholas Freudenberg, Susan Klitzman

27. Strategies that promote health in cities: A local health department’s perspective
Mary T. Bassett, Thomas R. Frieden, Deborah R. Deitcher, Thomas D. Matte

28. Providing health services to marginalized urban populations
Anita Palepu, Mark W. Tyndall

29. Integrative chapter: Teaching and practice for promoting health in cities

The Editors