Urban slums are proliferating in the developing countries. A corollary of this structural transformation is the increasing recognition of an urban penalty wherein slum populations exhibit notable inequalities in health relative to non-slum urban residents and even rural populations. The built urban environment, in turn, is a crucial context within which the social production of disproportionate...

BACKGROUND It is generally assumed that urban slum residents have worse health status when compared with other urban populations, but better health status than their rural counterparts. This belief/assumption is often because of their physical proximity and assumed better access to health care services in urban areas. However, a few recent studies have cast doubt on this belief. Whether slum dw...

Informal settlement upgrading is widely recognized for enhancing shelter and promoting economic development, yet its potential to improve health equity is usually overlooked. Almost one in seven people on the planet are expected to reside in urban informal settlements, or slums, by 2030. Slum upgrading is the process of delivering place-based environmental and social improvements to the urban p...

This paper presents an approach to automated identification of slum area change patterns in Hyderabad, India, using multi-year and multi-sensor very high resolution satellite imagery. It relies upon a lacunarity-based slum detection algorithm, combined with Cannyand LSD-based imagery pre-processing routines. This method outputs plausible and spatially explicit slum locations for the whole urban...

Slum identification in urban settlements is a crucial step in the process of formulation of pro-poor policies. However, the use of conventional methods for slum detection such as field surveys can be time-consuming and costly. This paper explores the possibility of implementing a low-cost standardized method for slum detection. We use spectral, texture and structural features extracted from ver...

BACKGROUND Substantial progress has been made in reducing childhood mortality worldwide from 1990-2015 (Millennium Development Goal, target 4). Achieving target goals on this however remains a challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya's infant mortality rates are higher than the global average and are more pronounced in urban areas as compared to rural areas. Only limited knowledge exists about th...

The cancerous spread of slum has been a rampant problem in urban areas worldwide. The acute shortage of housing facilities compels the poor to live in slums. Proper rehabilitation is considered as a very essential remedial measure to provide better living environment to slum peoples. This study is an essential attempt to gauge the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program, which studies the cha...

background: india has a high burden of tobacco usage and its related morbidity and mortality. almost 30% of the indian population above 15 years of age use some form of tobacco. men usually use smoked tobacco, while women are more likely to use smokeless (chewed) tobacco. tobacco usage has been identified as a risk factor for non-communicable diseases (ncds) among slum dwellers in urban cities....

BACKGROUND Urban slums, like refugee communities, comprise a social cluster that engenders a distinct set of health problems. With 1 billion people currently estimated to live in such communities, this neglected population has become a major reservoir for a wide spectrum of health conditions that the formal health sector must deal with. DISCUSSION Unlike what occurs with refugee populations, ...

The developing world is rapidly urbanizing, but an understanding of how child health differs across urban and rural areas is lacking. We examine the association between area of residence and child health in India, focusing on composition and selection effects. Simple height-for-age averages show that rural Indian children have the poorest health and urban children have the best, with slum child...