Urban health in the post-2015 agenda.

With the rapid rate of urbanisation in developing countries across Asia and Africa, about 70% of the world’s population is expected to be living in cities by 2050. In their density and complexity, cities often drive national economies, provide a rich array of specialised services, ideas and innovation, with diverse social and cultural populations. However, with an estimated one billion people living in slums—according to UN Habitat, cities are also sites of extreme poverty and environmental degradation with some missing basic infrastructure and services including sanitation, electricity, and health care. In addition to health issues, such as infectious diseases and environmental pollution in urban areas, cities are now confronted with epidemics of non-communicable diseases associated with unhealthy diets, sedentary lifestyles, obesity, and mental health problems—which can be associated with substance misuse, violence, poverty, or unemployment. In the next decades, urban populations are estimated to double to 6·3 billion people, exacerbating these problems. Although the strengthening of public health and health-care delivery systems are fundamental to any development strategy, action in other sectors is also essential to improve health. There is a pressing need to address the basic needs of urban populations and, at the same time, to change the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health in cities through sustainable development. These changes need integration, coordination, and financial investment. Planning of land-use, food security, creation of jobs, transportation infrastructure, conservation of biodiversity and water, supply of renewable energy sources through waste and recycling management, disaster management, the provision of education, public health-care services, and housing in urban areas are all important issues that need addressing. The upcoming 12th International Conference on Urban Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is themed Urban Health for a Sustainable Future. This conference will be a forum for scientists, practitioners, policy makers, and community organisations to discuss how to advance research and practice to promote the health of people living in cities. Futhermore, this conference will lead to discussions with people from diff erent geographical areas and from low-income to high-income settings on how to integrate urban health in the post-2015 development framework. Expected outcomes include the promotion of transdisciplinary research, resource mobilisation, and sharing of evidence-based policy reforms and interventions to advance urban health through the proposed sustainable development goals. The transformative approach stated in the post-2015 development agenda necessitates innovative and strong partnerships between civil society and private sectors, institutions that can work in an integrated manner, transfer of technology, capacity building, and greater attention than previously given to information access, monitoring, and reporting for accountability. A worldwide shared ambition should be to bring health to the centre of sustainable urban development.