Introduction Today it is generally the case that urban dwellers enjoy higher life expectancy than their rural counterparts, globally. This urban advantage is partly attributable to the higher average incomes of urban dwellers, as well as superior access to public health services, including water supply and sewage disposal, and medical services. However this was not the historical norm. In the s...

Introduction The world is becoming increasingly urban. Of the projected increase of 1·1 billion in the world population between 2010 and 2025, virtually all will be urban dwellers. Urbanisation is mostly happening in lowincome regions, with Africa having the highest rate of all continents. The population growth rate in urban areas is almost double the rural rate but, more importantly, the slum ...

BACKGROUND This paper examines socio-economic and geographic differences in payment and payment coping mechanisms for health services in southeast Nigeria. It shows the extent to which the poor and rural dwellers disproportionally bear the burden of health care costs and offers policy recommendations for improvements. METHODS Questionnaires were used to collect data from 3071 randomly selecte...

BACKGROUND Sustained civil and military conflict, resulting in large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDP), in combination with rapid urbanization has strained public health and sanitation within cities in Afghanistan. In order to examine the association between preventive sanitary behaviors and diarrhea within two high risk settings located within Kabul, Afghanistan, this study aimed t...

BACKGROUND The ability to initiate and sustain health enhancing behaviour including physical activity requires appropriate self-perception of such activities. This study was conducted to investigate whether a group of Nigerian urban community dwellers are able to demonstrate a good perception of their physical activity behaviour. METHODOLOGY The study was a cross-sectional survey of 1,153 urb...

Reducing inequalities is a priority from a human rights perspective and in water and public health initiatives. There are periodic calls for differential national and global standards for rural and urban areas, often justified by the suggestion that, for a given water source type, safety is worse in urban areas. For instance, initially proposed post-2015 water targets included classifying urban...

Public health in the United States began as a largely urban phenomenon, dating back to the late 1700s. In those days, public health was mostly concerned with issues such as sanitation and communicable diseases, which were of greater concern in areas with higher population density. By the late 1800s, however, it was apparent that the country's population was becoming more mobile and communicable...

1669 Sleep and Urban Poverty—Simonelli et al INTRODUCTION The unprecedented urban growth in the face of increasing poverty and social inequity in developing countries is posing an immense challenge for governments at all levels. Urbanization of poverty is shown mainly by the proliferation and expansion of slums.1 Such places often contain houses built using plywood, wood boards, cardboard, corr...