Institutional food as a lever for improving health in cities: the case of New York City.

Needed: Global Collaboration for Comparative Research on Cities and Health

Over half of the world’s population lives in cities and United Nations (UN) demographers project an increase of 2.5 billion more urban dwellers by 2050. Yet there is too little systematic comparative research on the practice of urban health policy and management (HPAM), particularly in the megacities of middle-income and developing nations. We make a case for creating a global database on citie...

The role of urban food policy in preventing diet-related non-communicable diseases in Cape Town and New York.

OBJECTIVES Cities are important settings for production and prevention of non-communicable diseases. This article proposes a conceptual framework for identification of opportunities to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases in cities. It compares two cities, Cape Town in South Africa and New York City in the United States, to illustrate municipal, regional, national and global influence...

Meeting the Challenge of Diabetes in China

China’s estimated 114 million people with diabetes pose a massive challenge for China’s health policy-makers who have significantly extended health insurance coverage over the past decade. What China is doing now, what it has achieved, and what remains to be done should be of interest to health policy-makers, worldwide. We identify the challenges posed by China’s two pr...

Cities and Health: A Response to the Recent Commentaries

Getting food policy on the Mayoral table: a comparison of two election cycles in New York and London.

Cities and Mayors are increasingly being recognized as important in shaping social policy and improving social well-being. And municipal food policies are increasingly important as a tool to reduce food insecurity and prevent diet-related chronic diseases. Thus city governments have a unique ability to improve local food environments. To realize this potential for improving urban food environme...