Urbanization and health in China, thinking at the national, local and individual levels

Environmental Health

Research

Guoqin Zhang¹  Xinhu Li¹  Hong Ye¹  Tao Lin¹  Jinchao Song¹  Jane Dixon² 

[1] Key Laboratory of Urban Environment & Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 361021, Xiamen, China;National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, the Australian National University, 0200, Canberra, ACT, Australia;

关键词: Food Safety;    West Nile Virus;    Migrant Worker;    Healthy City;    Insufficient Physical Activity;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12940-016-0104-5

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundChina has the biggest population in the world, and has been experiencing the largest migration in history, and its rapid urbanization has profound and lasting impacts on local and national public health. Under these conditions, a systems understanding on the correlation among urbanization, environmental change and public health and to devise solutions at national, local and individual levels are in urgent need.MethodsIn this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of recent studies which have examined the relationship between urbanization, urban environmental changes and human health in China. Based on the review, coupled with a systems understanding, we summarize the challenges and opportunities for promoting the health and wellbeing of the whole nation at national, local, and individual levels.ResultsUrbanization and urban expansion result in urban environmental changes, as well as residents’ lifestyle change, which can lead independently and synergistically to human health problems. China has undergone an epidemiological transition, shifting from infectious to chronic diseases in a much shorter time frame than many other countries. Environmental risk factors, particularly air and water pollution, are a major contributing source of morbidity and mortality in China. Furthermore, aging population, food support system, and disparity of public service between the migrant worker and local residents are important contributions to China’s urban health.ConclusionsAt the national level, the central government could improve current environmental policies, food safety laws, and make adjustments to the health care system and to demographic policy. At the local level, local government could incorporate healthy life considerations in urban planning procedures, make improvements to the local food supply, and enforce environmental monitoring and management. At the individual level, urban residents can be exposed to education regarding health behaviour choices while being encouraged to take responsibility for their health and to participate in environmental monitoring and management.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Li et al. 2016. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.