Nexus of diseases outbreak and urban environment / Nitin Kumar Shrivastava; under the guidance of Kshama Puntambekar

Abstract

Everyone deserves to live a long life in full health, but due to various global burdens of disease healthy life expectancy is continuously decreasing. Findings confirm that 23% of global deaths are due to modifiable environmental factors and these are much higher in lower-income countries like India. India, being a third-world country, has encountered a variety of epidemics and pandemics over time. Several accounts of corona, influenza, cholera, dengue, smallpox, and several others have been recorded throughout history; while we have been able to eradicate some; many diseases still continue to pose a threat to the community. According to the UN, the world’s urban population percent grew from 43% to 54% from 1990 to 2015 and it will further grow up to 68% by 2050. Due to exponential urban growth urban areas are becoming important hubs for the transmission of diseases. We have to understand the disease occurs due to several urban environment parameters. Further work in these indicators of the urban environment can improve the urban health quality, as well as it will provide a significant contribution towards achieving the SDGs and improving life and health for all. Prioritize a better understanding of how the urban environment is changing the epidemiology of diseases outbreak; as well as exploring how interventions can be adapted for implementation in the urban setting. So the aim is to explore potential spatial planning strategies to enhance urban environmental quality in order to mitigate the magnitude of future disease outbreaks. This research will discuss about many emerging infectious diseases of recent decades, and their relationship with the urban environment parameters. Then after the selection of study area and detailed study of the health-related factors of site i.e. what is the condition of the urban environment, what kind of diseases are present, the relation between them, what are the adoption strategies and policy to mitigate those problems, and what are the gaps in those adoption strategies because lack of integration of urban health factor in times of urban spatial planning projects makes the city vulnerable at the time of emergency. Proposals of research incorporate all these data, assessments, and current gaps to mitigate future outbreaks magnitude.