Urban public health : a research toolkit for practice and impact

This book will orient public health scholars and practitioners, as well as professionals from related fields such as the social sciences and design professions, to the tools and skills needed for effective urban health research, including foundational concepts, data sources, strategies for generating evidence, and engagement and dissemination strategies to inform action for urban health. The book brings together what the researchers are learning through ongoing research experience and their efforts to inform action. Chapters also feature brief contributions from other urban health experts and practitioners. The book highlights throughout the public health importance of urban environments and the critical need for diverse interdisciplinary teams and intersectoral collaboration to develop and evaluate approaches to improve health in urban settings. Urban health professionals are often charged with working in ways that take a systems perspective and challenge conventional silos, while also engaging in more traditional public health actions and research strategies. The text is infused with themes emphasizing the importance of place for health, the potential to link evidence with action, and the critical need to attend to health inequities within urban environments. By providing a primer on the range of activities and capacities useful to urban health researchers, the book supports reader in their own professional development and team building by covering a range of relevant skills and voices. The primary audience includes trainees at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels who are interested in creating actionable evidence and in taking evidence-informed action to improve health within urban settings. Cover Urban Public Health Copyright Contents Contributing Authors Foreword Preface Part I. Introduction to Urban Health 1. What Is Urban Health? Defining the Geographic and Substantive Scope Why Urban Health? The Geography of Urban Health: Urban Areas, Cities, and Neighborhoods The Substance of Urban Health: Key Elements and Approaches 2. Global Urbanization and Health Trends Urbanization Patterns Worldwide Urban Living and Health Urban Health on the Global Agenda 3. Conceptual Models and Frameworks for Understanding the Links Between Urban Environments and Health Conceptualizing the Links Between Places and Health Multisectoral Approaches to Urban Health Urban Health Research Questions and Policy Options 4. Urban Health Inequities What Are Urban Health Inequities? Describing Urban Health Inequities Causes of Urban Health Inequities: The Role of Residential Segregation Approaches to Reducing Urban Health Inequities Urban health Inequities as a Major Challenge for Urban Health Part II. Identifying and Collecting Data for Urban Health Research 5. Assessment of the Urban Environment: Measurement Scales, Modes, and Metrics Why Measure the Urban Environment Where and at What Level to Measure Urban Features What to Measure: Domains and Indicators for Citywide and Neighborhood Level Assessment Secondary Spatial Data on Health Determinants From Governmental, Open, and Commercial sources Primary Data Collection Across Entire Urban Spaces or Across Sampled Locations Closing Thoughts on Measuring Health-​Relevant Aspects of the Urban Environment 6. Human Perceptions and Reflections on the Urban Context Overview of Data on Human Perceptions and Reflections About the Environment Quantitative Data to Capture Perceptions of the Environment Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research to Understand How Residents View and Reflect on Urban Environments Closing Thoughts on Improving Our Understanding of Perception and Reflection in Urban Contexts 7. Characterizing and Mapping Health in Urban Areas Selecting Health Outcomes to Match Urban Health Goals Health Data Sources and Consideration for Their Use in Urban Contexts Mapping and Characterizing Spatial Variation in Health Closing Note on Alignment Across Goals, Data Sources, and Visualization Strategies Part III. Tools for Working With Urban Health Data 8. Managing and Integrating Diverse Sources of Urban Data Variable Creation and Manipulation to Facilitate Linkage File Naming and Metadata to Ease Navigation and Linkage Bringing It All Together: Linking and Sharing Data Sets and Associated Documentation Spotlight on Strategies for Integrating Geographic Data With Clinical Records Concluding Thoughts on Managing Diverse Data Sources for Urban Health Research 9. Analysis Strategies for Relating the Urban Environment to Health Descriptive, Causal Inference, and Evaluation-​Related Analyses Goals Accounting for Multilevel and Spatial Structure Transformation of Urban Environment Variables to Address Nonlinearity or Collinearity Design and Analytic Strategies to Reduce Confounding in Studies of Environmental Influence on Health Closing Thoughts on Analysis Options 10. What Do We Know About What Works? Synthesizing the Evidence What Can Be Synthesized Goals for Evidence Synthesis Types of Review: Formality, Format, and Breadth of Included Evidence Steps and Considerations for Conducting Systematic Reviews Relevant to Urban Health Global and National Evidence Repositories Relevant to Urban Health Concluding Note on Evidence Synthesis for Urban Health 11. Systems Approaches to Urban Health Key Features of Systems Using Systems Approaches to Engage Stakeholders: Participatory Group Model Building Simulating Urban Systems: Agent-​Based Models and System Dynamics Models Challenges and Opportunities for Systems Approaches to Urban Health Caveats and Conclusion Part IV. From Evidence into Action 12. Partnerships and Collaboration: An Urban Focus Background Urban Public Health Actors Multisector Collaboration Conclusion 13. Community Engagement and Participatory Approaches for Urban Health Introduction Community Partnership Challenges Community Partnership Solutions The Importance of Coalition-​Building for Cross-​Sector, Place-​Based, Collective Action Approaches to Improving Urban Health Conclusion: An Integrated View of Community Health Action in Urban Contexts 14. Policy in Urban Health: The Power of Cities to Translate Science into Action Policy Defined Policy and Public Health Policy and Cities: Tools to Impact Health Challenges to Policymaking Measuring and Evaluating Policy: How Do We Know If It Works? Conclusion 15. Dissemination of Urban Health Research to Maximize Impact Background Planning and Designing for Dissemination Dissemination to Policy Audiences and Decision Makers Dissemination to Community Actors Types of Dissemination Products for Policy Audiences Digital Dissemination and Social Media Monitoring and Tracking the Reach of Dissemination Conclusion Concluding Remarks Acknowledgments About the Authors Index Today, we know cities as shared spaces with the potential to both threaten and promote human health: while urban areas are known to amplify the transmission of epidemics like Ebola, urban residency is also associated with longer, healthier lives. Modern cities encompass a wide ecology of infrastructures, institutions and services that impact health, from access to improved sanitation and early childhood education to the design of buildings and transportation systems. So how has this centuries-long transformation in human settlement affected the mindset surrounding public health research and practice? Urban Public Health is an interdisciplinary collaboration from experts across the globe that approaches the issue of urban health research from a uniquely public health orientation. The carefully crafted and thoughtful chapters in this volume grapple with the complexity of the urban setting as a physical and social space while also providing an abundance of global and local examples of current urban health practices. Urban Public Health is divided into four pragmatic sections which cover core conceptual models of public health and their inequities, methods of urban health research assessment, methods of urban health research analysis and explanation, and ultimately, opportunities for urban health research to inform action through partnership and collaboration, including those which elevate community voices and capacities. An accessible guide for both students and researchers alike, Urban Public Health shines a light on how to understand, measure and change the urban setting so that cities grow, people thrive, and no one is left behind. "Any discussion about urban health will begin with the fact that most of humanity now lives in urban areas. About a decade into the 21st century, the urban portion of the global population surpassed 50 percent. This shift to majority urban will come last to Africa, where the rate of urban growth is the highest in the world. How has this centuries-long transformation in human settlement affected how we think about public health research and practice? The answer: not enough. Urban health has been a niche area, much as the climate crisis has been a niche area in environmental science. It is clear that this must change because urban is how people now live. URBAN PUBLIC HEALTH: A Research Toolkit for Practice and Impact is a valuable addition to the surprisingly slim number of books that investigate what urban health means and why its study is both distinct and important. Carefully crafted and thoughtful chapters grapple with the complexity of the urban setting as a physical and social space. The volume will appeal to a varied audience, including researchers, students and practitioners alike"-- Provided by publisher This text will orient public health scholars and practitioners, as well as professionals from related fields such as the social sciences and design professions, to the tools and skills needed for effective urban health research, including foundational concepts, data sources, strategies for generating evidence, and engagement and dissemination strategies to inform action for urban health. The work brings together what the researchers are learning through ongoing research experience and their efforts to inform action