Urbanization and health

A majority the world’s population (4.2 billion) are now living in cities and municipal regions. According to the UN, 55% of the world was living in cities in 2018 and over 68% were expected to live in urban areas by 2050. Urbanization is a dynamic and evolving physical, social, and economic transformation that shapes the health and well-being of populations living in cities and around the world. City living can be healthy, since they can offer more population groups the health benefits of life-supporting infrastructure such as clean water and sanitation, education, and social services, as well as greater cultural, religious, and political expression and freedoms. This chapter briefly reviews the historical debates around the connections between human health and urbanization and highlights some challenges for addressing twenty-first century urbanization. Twenty-first century urbanization presents new challenges for urban health.