With the growth of cities and towns throughout the developing world have come significant health problems. The urban poor are particularly affected, faced with the worst of both worlds: urban problems such as pollution and stress, combined with infectious diseases common in both rural and urban areas. The Healthy City Project shows how to put health high on the agenda of urban officials, integrating it into all other planning and development decisions. Healthy City Projects in Developing Countries presents a comprehensive account of this very important and increasingly influential initiative. Drawing on experience in a range of cities it shows how to design, implement and evaluate the integration of public health into urban management. The results will be very significant to all those making and implementing urban policies, as well as those working in and on public health, urban development and environmental issues.

The impact of urbanization on the health of citizens in developing countries has received increasing attention recently. This book addresses the problems in an integrated way, looking in detail at both the problems themselves and the action and research necessary to alleviate them. It includes contributions from leading practitioners and advisors to many of the main international agencies and presents the latest thinking of those institutions. It also presents recent information on research findings, the management and financing of urban health services and trends in urban health policy. Case studies examine major initiatives in cities as diverse as Santiago, Dar es Salaam, Dhaka, Kampala and Bombay.

With the growth of cities and towns throughout the developing world have come significant health problems. The urban poor are particularly affected, faced with the worst of both worlds: urban problems such as pollution and stress, combined with infectious diseases common in both rural and urban areas. The Healthy City Project shows how to put health high on the agenda of urban officials, integrating it into all other planning and development decisions. Healthy City Projects in Developing Countries presents a comprehensive account of this very important and increasingly influential initiative. Drawing on experience in a range of cities it shows how to design, implement and evaluate the integration of public health into urban management. The results will be very significant to all those making and implementing urban policies, as well as those working in and on public health, urban development and environmental issues.

We have a certain amount of knowledge of the problems of urban health in Africa. We also partly understand the determinants of such problems: environmental, social, structural, and service related. Multi-level research has enabled the role of 'place' for health to be acknowledged and in particular, the importance of social connections at the neighbourhood level. However, truly multi-sectoral action for urban health, which reflects the multiple determinants, is rare and often fails. Pilot projects are rarely scaled up. More evaluative intervention research is needed and researchers need to engage policy makers at earlier stages. We also need to understand the urban policy process more - especially the role of frontline workers in determining policy. Urban health research has focussed on problems (vulnerabilities) and not strengths or resilience. Using a more positive model of urban health might enhance the research translation process (getting research into policy and practice: GRIPP) and speed up action to improve urban health. Trudy Harpham is a geographer and professor emeritus of the London South Bank University where she taught Urban Development and Policy. Over the past three decades she has played a central role in establishing urban health as an urgent and important field of research and in pushing it up on the international health policy agenda.