Creating a Healthy City

What Would a Healthy City Appear Like

A healthy city would be filled with clean air and a safe and high quality environment, with all fundamental requirements such as water, food, and shelter for all residents. There would be adequate education supplied for everyone, and in turn diverse employment opportunities so that more citizens will have tasks. A healthy city would have a lot of recreational areas for its citizens, and a mass transit system that would help homeowners take a trip safely in between house and work.

There would likewise be a superior level of suitable public health care services and accessibility. (Hilgenkamp 364). Like a truly healthy human body, a truly healthy community is one in which all systems operate as they should, and interact to make the neighborhood function well.

Barriers to Ending Up Being a Healthy City

One of the most significant obstacles in developing a healthy neighborhood coalition is to sustain the members' participation in the procedure.

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This difficulty can be gotten rid of in part by concurring as early as possible on a vision for the community. Although a Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities effort should not be top-down, it needs the commitment and support of those with the power to make things take place. Authorities can use the media to publicize the effort, pass laws and regulations (and implement those currently existing) that enhance it, and toss the weight and resources of government behind it. Without official assistance, a community-wide effort is more most likely to stop working.

Financial Issues in Developing a Health City

The ultimate objective here is the advancement of a truly healthy community, which translates to improving the quality of life for everybody in the neighborhood. This is refrained from doing without cost. Improving existing and constructing brand-new parks can be extremely expensive. Another high cost to a healthy community is the medical treatment of the ill without insurance coverage. This can be a high tax problem on the citizens, which can diminish the health worth of the community. Revamping a city's facilities, such as wastewater treatment and supply of water can be another expensive expenditure in ending up being a tidy city.

Benefits of a Healthy City

Creating and sustaining a good healthy city has many benefits. A solid healty community provides: •Shelter adequate to the climate, to the needs of the occupants, and to withstand extremes of weather. •Education for children (and often adults as well, as in the case of adult literacy) that is free, adequate to equip them for a productive and comfortable life in their society. •Not just food, but enough of it, and of adequate nutritional value, to assure continued health and vigor for adults, and proper development for children. •A stable ecosystem. Clean air, clean water, and protection of the natural environment. •Sustainable resources that include water, farmland, minerals, industrial resources, power sources (sun, wind, water, biomass), plants, animals. •Employment that provides an income adequate for a reasonable quality of life, and public support for those who are unable to work or find jobs.

What is Environmental Health

In order to define and completely understand environmental health, we should first break each of its components down and define them. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The environment is defined as “All conditions, circumstances, and influences surrounding and affecting the development or existence of people or other living things.” (Hilgenkamp 1) Environmental health in turn is essentially how we can prevent disease and create a health-supportive environment along with its related systems. Environmental health is the understanding of how we can sustain life on the planet for all future generations to come.

Healthy City’s Importance to Environmental Health

The WHO defines the Healthy City as "one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential." A healthy city is not about the health sector only. It includes health considerations in economic, regeneration and urban development efforts. Its primary goal is to put health high on the social, economic and political agenda of city governments. (WHO Europe)

Environmental Health as a Global Concern

Earth is one giant system, with four main divisions which are the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Hilgenkamp addressed several key reasons for environmental health being a global issue. The first issue was the world population increase. It was noted that from 1950 to 1975, the world population increased by 64%. Increasing population growth means an increased need for food and waste disposal. In order to accommodate this increase, additional land must be cleared, thus taking away additional natural resources needed to maintain oxygen and water supplies in the environment. (Hilgenkamp 25)

As population increases worldwide, so do the demands for energy. This increase in energy need increase the consumption of natural resources such as coal, oil, and uranium, that in turn endanger our water supplies. It also increase the amount of power plants needed, which increases the amount of air pollution, and in turn causes increases in atmospheric temperature known as global warming. In addition to the changes in climate, global warming also increase human illness because of the rise of new diseases and the reemergence of old ones. (Hilgenkamp 27)

Environmental Health as an Individual Concern

Since the environment provides us with so many resources such as clean air, clean water, and nutrients, environmental degradation directly influences human health. Because humans dominate most ecosystems on Earth we have a large impact on the environment, it is therefore a responsibility of each human to do their part to maintain environmental health. Overpopulation and demands on natural resources can degrade the environment. There are ways that each of us can facilitate the preservation of the environment and conservation of its resources, such as recycling products when possible, use pollution control devices, practice new farming techniques that reduce agricultural pollution, as well as adhere to laws put in place to protect us such as the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act.

References
Hilgenkamp, Kathryn. Environmental Health: Ecological Perspectives. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 09/09/2005. VitalBook file. Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948. WHO Europe. Healthy Cities. Retrieved 6/10/2014 From http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/urban-health/activities/healthy-cities