This study in Tehran examined how barriers, tree height, street proximity, and fruit type affect metal content. Results showed sites taller than 10 meters exhibited the highest cadmium levels, while barriers and proximity to streets influenced lead levels. Understanding these factors is crucial for designing safe edible green infrastructure.
Across many cities, residents of informal settlements lack safe, nearby green space. Using Nakuru (Kenya) as a testbed, we show how opening schoolyards to communities outside school hours can rapidly expand walkable access at minimal cost. With basic security and governance measures, this dual-use model can advance health equity and resilience.
How do children perceive and interpret different noises and how their personal experiences correlate with objective measurements? What are the long-term repercussions of sustained noise exposure during the formative years on adult cognition, behaviour, and health outcomes?
This research extends existing scholarship by contextualizing Healthy City principles within Saudi Arabia’s specific climatic conditions, demographic transitions, and centralized governance structures. Rather than advocating direct replication of international models, the study emphasizes learning from international experiences to inform context-specific strategies aligned with Vision 2030 and national sustainability priorities. By interpreting international experiences within Saudi urban realities, this work provides a geographically specialized and policy-relevant contribution to the discourse on sustainable and healthy urban development.
Green infrastructure has been conceived as something for the well-off in cities of developed countries. How green infrastructure contributes to quality of life and wellbeing in slums and informal settlements is largely unknown. A survey of the residents (sample size = 455) within a slum community (Ikorodu-Ajegunle) in Lagos, Nigeria. The survey was preceded by stakeholder forum where actors from health, urbanism, environmental sectors discussed the links and made inputs to the research instrument used for data collection.
Cities urgently need systemic health checks. Without them, they keep fixing symptoms, wasting scarce budgets, while hidden risks grow. This proposed approach helps cities understand their true health and activate their self-healing capacity instead of constantly firefighting.
To understand the current drivers of air pollution, we used two natural experiments (Car-Free Day and COVID-19 Lockdown) to examine their impact on air pollution using particulate matter air pollution data in Kigali City. The health impact of non-motorized transport events in Kigali, known as ‘Car-Free Days,’ goes beyond just mass physical exercise. Importantly, it has reduced air pollution by 15%, this is expected to save more than 200 disability-adjusted life years annually.
Unregulated urbanization in Islamabad fuels flooding and health risks like dengue, revealing gaps in environmental health integration. Our study’s insights urge planners to prioritize equitable, health-focused urban policies.
Air pollution kills. But who is most exposed to air pollution in a city? This paper explores how different workers in Bangkok are exposed to PM2.5, how they protect themselves (or not), and what this means for city planners.
Anthropogenic climate change is bringing with it a whole host of deleterious public health impacts. People will die and suffer disproportionately following inequitable societal structures. With every passing year time to mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic climate change slips away. The time is now to deliberately plan for the health impacts that are now ‘baked in’ for centuries to come.