RSS Feeds

Earth Science

Space Science

Life Science

Fields of Scientific Study

Nanotechnology

Cancer

Definitions of The Fields of Scientific Study

Public health impact of climate change, poverty, disaster response and housing design

May 21, 2007

Leading global experts provide insight into protecting public health and promoting health equity in urban settings in a supplement to the May/June 2007 issue of The New York Academy of Medicine's Journal of Urban Health. The 15 reports in the supplement were issued by the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health.

Highlights of the supplement, entitled "Achieving Health Equity in Urban Settings," include reports regarding the influence of climate change on health status, the post-disaster response in Indonesia, and improvements needed to the design of housing and shelter programs in developing countries. Experts from the WHO, Pan American Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and major research institutions including the Academy are among the authors.

"Achieving health equity in the urban setting requires action toward fairness and equity within and between countries. Engaging the people themselves, urban communities and multiple sectors in the urban development process is a must," explains Tord Kjellstrom, BMed, MEng, PhD, coauthor of the supplement's editorial. Kjellstrom is a professor at the National Institute of Public Health in Sweden and at the Health and Environment International Trust in New Zealand, and a visiting fellow with the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health of the Australian National University.

The supplement's 15 papers were originally presented at a meeting of Knowledge Network on Urban Settings (KNUS) in November 2006 in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania, which was attended by practitioners, policymakers, community-based organizations, researchers and WHO regional representatives. The WHO's Centre for Health Development, based in Kobe, Japan, the KNUS hub, is part of a larger effort to identify opportunities for WHO to improve action on social determinants of health. The core membership of KNUS consists of a dozen international experts, each from a different geographic region.

Below is a full table of contents for the Journal of Urban Health supplement.

* "Urban Poverty is a Public Health Issue"
Susan Mercado, Kirsten Havemann, Mojgan Sami, and Hiro Ueda

* "Urban as Determinant of Health"
David Vlahov, Nicholas Freudenberg, Fernando Proietti, Danielle Ompad, Andrew Quinn, Vijay Nandi, and Sandro Galea

* "Emerging Disease Burdens and the Poor in Cities of the Developing World"
Tim Campbell and Alana Campbell

* "Climate Change and Health in Developing Country Cities"
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum and Carlos Corvalan

* "Cities and Calamities: Learning from Post-disaster Response in Indonesia"
Josef Leitmann

* "Social Determinants of the Health of Urban Populations: Implications for Intervention"
Danielle C. Ompad, Sandro Galea, Waleska T. Caiaffa, and David Vlahov

* "Urbanisation and Slum Formation"
Giok Ling Ooi and Kai Hong Phua

* "Income and Health in Cities: The Messages from Stylized Facts"
Shahid Yusuf, Kaoru Nabeshima, and Wei Ha

* "The Design of Housing and Shelter Programs: The Social and Environmental Determinants of Inequalities"
Shaaban Sheuya , Philippa Howden-Chapman, and Sheela Patel

* "The Health Equity Dimensions of Urban Food Systems"
Jane Dixon, Sharon Friel, Abiud M. Omwega, Kelly Donati, Cate Burns, and Rachel Carlisle

* "The Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, TB and Vector-borne Diseases in Slums and Informal Settlements: Challenges, Opportunities and Insights"
Annette David, Susan Mercado, Daniel Becker, Katia Edmundo and Frederick Mugisha

* "Improving Health and Building Human Capital Through an Effective Primary Care System and Healthy Setting Approach"
Albert Lee, Andrew Kiyu , Helia Molina Milman, and Jorge de la Jara

* "Emerging Strategies for Healthy Urban Governance"
Scott Burris, Trevor Hancock, Vivian Lin and Andre Herzog

* "Healthy Governance/participatory Governance: Integrated Approaches to Address the Social Determinants of Health for Reducing Health Inequity"
Francoise Barten, Diana Mitlin, Catherine Mulholland, Ana Hardoy, and Ruth Stern

* "Social Capital and Health Urbanization in a Globalized World"
Pat Pridmore, Liz Thomas, Kirsten Havemann, Jaime Sapag, and Lisa Wood

* "Urban Environmental Health Hazards and Health Equity"
Tord Kjellstrom, Sharon Friel, Jane Dixon, Carlos Corvalan, Eva Rehfuess, Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, Fiona Gore, and James Bartram

New York Academy of Medicine

Related Climate Change Current Events and Climate Change News Articles

Climate Change Current Events and Climate Change News RSS

Climate change could boost incidence of civil war in Africa
Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades.

We're off then: the evolution of bat migration
Not just birds, but also a few species of bats face a long journey every year. Researchers at Princeton University in the U.S. and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany studied the migratory behaviour of the largest extant family of bats, the so-called "Vespertilionidae" with the help of mathematical models.

Researchers establish common seasonal pattern among bacterial communities in Arctic rivers
New research on bacterial communities throughout six large Arctic river ecosystems reveals predictable temporal patterns, suggesting that scientists could use these communities as markers for monitoring climate change in the polar regions.

Flax and yellow flowers can produce bioethanol
Surplus biomass from the production of flax shives, and generated from Brassica carinata, a yellow-flowered plant related to those which engulf fields in spring, can be used to produce bioethanol.

Aquatic creatures mix ocean water
Understanding mixing in the ocean is of fundamental importance to modeling climate change or predicting the effects of an El Niño on our weather. Modern ocean models primarily incorporate the effects of winds and tides. However, they do not generally take into account the mixing generated by swimming animals.

How green is your house?
Preliminary results from 1500 respondents show that those who own their own home are more likely to separate their rubbish (83 per cent) than those in rented accommodation (59 per cent), whilst less than one in a hundred households have solar water heating (0.5 per cent) or solar energy panels (0.5 per cent). Initial findings also show that switching off the lights in unused rooms (82 per cent) and not leaving the television on standby (67 per cent) are significantly more popular than taking fewer flights (16 per cent), car sharing (15 per cent) and not buying items because they have too much packaging (8 per cent).

Scientists at UA, collaborating institutions decode maize genome
Scientists from the University of Arizona led by Arizona Genomics Institute director Rod A. Wing and from collaborating institutions have deciphered the complete genetic code of the maize plant for the first time.

ORNL, Los Alamos pioneer new approach to assist scientists, farmers
Sustainable farming, initially adopted to preserve soil quality for future generations, may also play a role in maintaining a healthy climate, according to researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Research challenges for understanding landscape changes identified
Nine research challenges and four research initiatives that are poised to advance the study of how Earth's landscapes change were unveiled today in a new report by the National Research Council.

Berkeley Lab Lends Expertise to India to Promote Energy Efficiency
ndia may rank only a distant fourth in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, behind China, the United States and Russia, but its rapid economic growth rate coupled with aging and inefficient energy infrastructure suggest dire environmental consequences if "business as usual" continues.

More Climate Change Current Events and Climate Change News Articles

	Climate Change: Picturing the Science by Gavin Schmidt (Author), Joshua Wolfe (Author), Jeffrey D. Sachs (Foreword) An unprecedented union of scientific analysis and stunning photography illustrating the effects of climate change on the global ecosystem. Going beyond the headlines, this work by leading NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt and master photographer Joshua Wolfe illustrates as never before the ramifications of shifting climate. Photographic spreads show retreating glaciers, sinking villages in Alaska’s tundra, and drying lakes. The text follows adventurous scientists through the ice caps at the poles to the coral reefs of the tropical seas. Marshaling data spanning centuries and continents, the book sparkles with cutting-edge research and visual records, including contributions from experts on atmospheric science, oceanography, paleoclimatology, technology, politics, and...
	The Rough Guide to Climate Change, 2nd Edition by Robert Henson (Author) The Rough Guide to Climate Change gives the complete picture of the single biggest issue facing the planet. Cutting a swathe through scientific research and political debate, this completely updated 2nd edition lays out the facts and assesses the options- global and personal- for dealing with the threat of a warming world. The guide looks at the evolution of our atmosphere over the last 4.5 billion years and what computer simulations of climate change reveal about our past, present, and future. This updated edition includes new information from the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and an updated politics section to reflect post-Kyoto developments. Discover how rising temperatures and sea levels, plus changes to extreme weather patterns, are already affecting...
	Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach by William James Burroughs (Author) Providing a concise, up-to-date presentation of current knowledge of climate change and its implications for society as a whole, this new edition has been thoroughly updated and extended to include the latest information. The text describes the components of the global climate, considers how the many elements of climate combine to define its behaviour, and reviews how climate change is measured. The author discusses how the causes of climate change can be related to the evidence of change, and modelled to predict future changes. This book is ideally suited for introductory courses in meteorology, oceanography, environmental science, earth science, geography, agriculture and social science. It contains review questions at the end of each chapter to enable readers to monitor their...
	The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate by Andrew E. Dessler (Author), Edward A. Parson (Author) Climate variability has become the primary environmental concern of the 21st Century. Yet, despite the scientific community's warnings of the imminent dangers of global warming, politicians world-wide have failed to agree on what to do about this potentially devastating environmental problem. This introductory primer informs scientists, policy makers and the general public by clarifying the conflicting claims of the debate.
	Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor by Roy Spencer (Author) The current frenzy over global warming has galvanized the public and cost taxpayers billons of dollars in federal expenditures for climate research. It has spawned Hollywood blockbusters and inspired major political movements. It has given a higher calling to celebrities and built a lucrative industry for scores of eager scientists. In short, ending climate change has become a national crusade. And yet, despite this dominant and sprawling campaign, the facts behind global warming remain as confounding as ever. In Climate Confusion, distinguished climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer observes that our obsession with global warming has only clouded the issue. Forsaking blindingly technical statistics and doomsday scenarios, Dr. Spencer explains in simple terms how the climate system...
	What We Know About Climate Change (Boston Review Books) by Kerry Emanuel (Author), Judith A. Layzer (Afterword), William R. Moomaw (Afterword) The vast majority of scientists agree that human activity has significantly increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—most dramatically since the 1970s. In February 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that global warming is "unequivocal" and that human-produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are chiefly to blame, to a certainty of more than 90 percent. Yet global warming skeptics and ill-informed elected officials continue to dismiss this broad scientific consensus. In What We Know About Climate Change, MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel outlines the basic science of global warming and how the current consensus has emerged. Although it is impossible to predict exactly when the most dramatic effects of global warming will be felt, he argues, we can...
	Climate Change (DK Eyewitness Books) by John Woodward (Author) The most trusted nonfiction series on the market, Eyewitness Books provide an in-depth, comprehensive look at their subjects with a unique integration of words and pictures. An in-depth look at the phenomenon of global warming--what's causing it, what it might lead to, and what we can do to fight back.
	The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World (Think Now) by James Garvey (Author) The debate about the existence of climate change seems finally at an end. We now have to decide what to do about it. Here, James Garvey argues that the ultimate rationale for action on climate change cannot be simply economic, political, scientific or social, though no doubt our decisions should be informed by such things. Instead, climate change is largely a moral problem. What we should do about it depends on what matters to us and what we think is right.This book is an introduction to the ethics of climate change. It considers a little climate science and a lot of moral philosophy, ultimately finding a way into the many possible positions associated with climate change. It is also a call for action, for doing something about the moral demands placed on both governments and individuals...
	National Geographic: Six Degrees Could Change the World Starring: Alec Baldwin Directed By: Ron Bowman In a special broadcast event, National Geographic explores the startling theory that Earths average temperature could rise six degrees Celsius by the year 2100. In this amazing and insightful documentary, National Geographic illustrates, one poignant degree at a time, the consequences of rising temperatures on Earth. Also, learn how existing technologies and remedies can help in the battle to dial back the global thermometer.
	Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future by Edmond A. Mathez (Author) Climate Change is geared toward a variety of students and general readers who seek the real science behind global warming. Exquisitely illustrated, the text introduces the basic science underlying both the natural progress of climate change and the effect of human activity on the deteriorating health of our planet. Noted expert and author Edmond A. Mathez synthesizes the work of leading scholars in climatology and related fields, and he concludes with an extensive chapter on energy production, anchoring this volume in economic and technological realities and suggesting ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate Change opens with the climate system fundamentals: the workings of the atmosphere and ocean, their chemical interactions via the carbon cycle, and the scientific...