IJE Advance Access originally published online on January 10, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(1):4-8; doi:10.1093/ije/dym271
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.
Editorial |
Cities, urbanization and health
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK.
E-mail: david.leon@lshtm.ac.uk
Accepted 10 December 2007
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
It is in cities, and not the countryside, where the human ‘creative flame’1 has burnt most brightly. For millennia they have been the centres and drivers of commercial, scientific, political and cultural life, having major influence upon whole countries and regions. The positive and progressive aspects of cities and urban centres recognized by historians, economists and other social scientists contrast with the more pessimistic tone of much of the epidemiological and public health literature on cities and urban life. In part this derives from the iconic place in our discipline of accounts of poor urban health in the 19th century in countries such as Britain. Almost everyone who has taken a course in epidemiology will have come across John Snow's classic studies of cholera in London in the 1840s, with its attendant images of poor sanitation and contaminated water.2
This history finds a resonance in contemporary concerns about the impact
Understanding urbanization today
Cities and health—the historical record
Are urban children disadvantaged today?
Urbanization, non-communicable diseases and adult mortality
The bigger picture