Modern urban planning emerged in response to public health challenges in the post-industrial revolution period in Europe. It has since evolved through the colonial and post-colonial phases of the 19th and 20th centuries with international, national, and local specificities. In the 21st century, human societies are rapidly urbanizing, even in LMICs where half or more of the population still live in rural areas. Therefore public policies that shape the nature of urbanization and urban habitats will become ever more critical to human and planetary health and wellbeing.
The challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, expected future pandemics, persistent and growing health inequalities, all demand a creative shift in the imagining of urban health, including, but not limited to, health care. Urban complexity requires a new approach to urban design, planning, and management, rooted in a recognition of the dynamic behavior of urban systems where people routinely resort to both formal and informal mechanisms to meet their habitat, healthcare and other needs. For instance, studies reveal that health seeking behavior of different urban sections reflects the navigation of both informal health traditions and formal public/private healthcare, effortlessly bridging the otherwise purported binary that exists in policy. Recognizing the same can gear urban health policy and urban green spaces to support herbal medicinal resources for home remedies to supplement the formal health care. Beyond healthcare, ensuring overall urban wellbeing also means urban policy and planning accounting for the diverse and dynamic eco-social interrelations, for instance urban and peri-urban agriculture bridges the informal-formal divide.
Capturing these and other complexities to inform appropriate innovations for the 21st century requires bottom-up co-production of knowledge, pluralism in health knowledge and inter- and trans-disciplinary research in public health, urban policy and planning with diverse visions of urban spaces,, environmental studies, food security and water management studies, and science and technology studies, among others.
An entire spectrum of methodological approaches-from positivist to interpretivist and realist health systems research to quasi-experimental approaches -are being applied to reimagine urban systems through a health and wellbeing lens. Political ecology, political economy and the politics of knowledge framings provide a critical understanding of differential health impacts of urban interventions as well as the pathways for transitions and transformations. Formal and informal structures, processes and practices are being scrutinized for lessons towards creative sustainable solutions. Conventional thinking and perceptions about bounded urban and rural areas are giving way to thinking of the urban-periurban-rural continuum in which habitat, livelihoods and health services are linked together in shaping population health. These pluralistic conceptions question the dominant models of health care and urban development of the 20th century, and offer alternative visions. For the proposed issue, an eco-social perspective together with complex adaptive systems thinking underlie the framing of urban health policy and urban planning.
This Research Topic intends to highlight possibilities and challenges for bridging the formal and informal features of urban systems and subsystems to address health needs in the 21st century. It prioritizes LMICs, while recognizing that even HICs have serious challenges to meet. Broad thematic areas that would be considered include the following as an illustrative list:
• Visions and concepts to bridge the formal and informal for addressing urban health issues;
• Pathways to sustainable urbanization and healthy cities;
• Pandemics, climate change and resilient urban systems;
• PHC and UHC for 21st century urban contexts;
• Plural and ecological approaches in urban health systems;
• Urban health problems, perceptions and behaviors;
• Social identity and struggles for wellbeing in urban contexts;
• Political economy of urbanization and its implications for urban health;
• The rural-urban continuum as complex adaptive systems;
• Urban and peri-urban land use planning: implications for health and wellbeing;
• Healthy cities and health care habitats;
• Urban and peri-urban agriculture as contributors to health and wellbeing;
• Citizen participation in urban governance and health care;
• Trans-disciplinary methodologies for urban health systems research.
Modern urban planning emerged in response to public health challenges in the post-industrial revolution period in Europe. It has since evolved through the colonial and post-colonial phases of the 19th and 20th centuries with international, national, and local specificities. In the 21st century, human societies are rapidly urbanizing, even in LMICs where half or more of the population still live in rural areas. Therefore public policies that shape the nature of urbanization and urban habitats will become ever more critical to human and planetary health and wellbeing.
The challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, expected future pandemics, persistent and growing health inequalities, all demand a creative shift in the imagining of urban health, including, but not limited to, health care. Urban complexity requires a new approach to urban design, planning, and management, rooted in a recognition of the dynamic behavior of urban systems where people routinely resort to both formal and informal mechanisms to meet their habitat, healthcare and other needs. For instance, studies reveal that health seeking behavior of different urban sections reflects the navigation of both informal health traditions and formal public/private healthcare, effortlessly bridging the otherwise purported binary that exists in policy. Recognizing the same can gear urban health policy and urban green spaces to support herbal medicinal resources for home remedies to supplement the formal health care. Beyond healthcare, ensuring overall urban wellbeing also means urban policy and planning accounting for the diverse and dynamic eco-social interrelations, for instance urban and peri-urban agriculture bridges the informal-formal divide.
Capturing these and other complexities to inform appropriate innovations for the 21st century requires bottom-up co-production of knowledge, pluralism in health knowledge and inter- and trans-disciplinary research in public health, urban policy and planning with diverse visions of urban spaces,, environmental studies, food security and water management studies, and science and technology studies, among others.
An entire spectrum of methodological approaches-from positivist to interpretivist and realist health systems research to quasi-experimental approaches -are being applied to reimagine urban systems through a health and wellbeing lens. Political ecology, political economy and the politics of knowledge framings provide a critical understanding of differential health impacts of urban interventions as well as the pathways for transitions and transformations. Formal and informal structures, processes and practices are being scrutinized for lessons towards creative sustainable solutions. Conventional thinking and perceptions about bounded urban and rural areas are giving way to thinking of the urban-periurban-rural continuum in which habitat, livelihoods and health services are linked together in shaping population health. These pluralistic conceptions question the dominant models of health care and urban development of the 20th century, and offer alternative visions. For the proposed issue, an eco-social perspective together with complex adaptive systems thinking underlie the framing of urban health policy and urban planning.
This Research Topic intends to highlight possibilities and challenges for bridging the formal and informal features of urban systems and subsystems to address health needs in the 21st century. It prioritizes LMICs, while recognizing that even HICs have serious challenges to meet. Broad thematic areas that would be considered include the following as an illustrative list:
• Visions and concepts to bridge the formal and informal for addressing urban health issues;
• Pathways to sustainable urbanization and healthy cities;
• Pandemics, climate change and resilient urban systems;
• PHC and UHC for 21st century urban contexts;
• Plural and ecological approaches in urban health systems;
• Urban health problems, perceptions and behaviors;
• Social identity and struggles for wellbeing in urban contexts;
• Political economy of urbanization and its implications for urban health;
• The rural-urban continuum as complex adaptive systems;
• Urban and peri-urban land use planning: implications for health and wellbeing;
• Healthy cities and health care habitats;
• Urban and peri-urban agriculture as contributors to health and wellbeing;
• Citizen participation in urban governance and health care;
• Trans-disciplinary methodologies for urban health systems research.