The world is becoming more and more urbanized each day. The growth of urban areas in recent years has been phenomenal as people trade in the rural lives they were used to living for the big city. In fact, as of 2008, more than half of the world’s population live in towns and cities. This accounts for 3.3 billion people and this number is only expected to grow (Yadev, Nikhil, & Pandav 2011). The shift of populations from rural areas to cities is much more pronounced in developing countries such as India. It is estimated that by 2030, 40% of India’s population will live in urban areas or put another way, 590 million people (Yadev et al). As one may expect from these astronomical numbers, the rapid pace of growth for these cities presents many health challenges for urban planners to try and accommodate such growth.
The stresses caused by urbanization include air pollution, water pollution, little sanitation, respiratory problems, and accidents related to increased traffic (Yadev et al). Waste is one of the most difficult problems for cities because as more people come to live in higher concentrations the waste becomes difficult to manage. This is especially difficult if the cities’ infrastructure is not developed to sufficiently accommodate the waste as is true in many developing countries like India. These sanitation challenges can lead to the rapid spread of disease and also contribute to the contamination of water sources. Also, The building and operation of factories leads to more air pollutants being released, as does the increased number of cars on the roads. These problems manifest themselves in the form of respiratory illness. These are some of the most pressing health troubles that urban areas are currently facing as they struggle to safely develop their urban regions. However, there are lesser publicized health problems that are beginning to appear in urban areas that will need attention in the future.
These problems are non-communicable diseases, namely diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, that are associated with urbanization in middle to low income countries (Leon 2008). A large part of these issues come as a result of the significant change in diet and exercise that comes with living in a city. It has been found in India that rates of obesity and hypertension are generally found to be much higher in the urban versus rural areas. It is expected that in 2030 that the global diabetes prevalence rate will grow from 2.8% to 4.4%, with urbanization in developing countries contributing to this rise. (Leon 2008). The rural lifestyle in India requires a large amount of labor to be put forth each day by each person. This labor, coupled with the non existent option of eating processed foods or traveling to a store for food are what keeps the weight from accumulating on these residents. The urban areas require less vigorous work to be done and allow for more leisure time for people where they can sit and relax rather then tend to crops all day. The rise in non-communicable diseases for the developing countries’ urban areas is a problem that will only grow with time. As more people move to the cities, their likelihood of suffering from these problems increases.
Although people in the cities may be suffering from the non-communicable diseases, rural areas are by no means devoid of their own set of health problems. The danger of the non-communicable disease though is that they are not easy to treat with the proper health care. This provides a contrast to the other problems of urbanization such as unclean water sources. There is at least a known cure for those problems that a city can work towards providing for its people. However, Diabetes is a lifelong disease requiring constant management, a hard service to provide for people when they don’t visit the doctor often. Hypertension and cardiovascular disease also have no cures, just recommendations for lifestyle changes to prevent the diseases from progressing. Non-communicable diseases need to be given attention in these urban areas so precautions can be taken to prevent their spread in the first place. If they are not prevented, India’s urban areas, along with the rest of the world will be forced to live with these diseases that have no known cure.
Developing countries are struggling to accommodate the vast number of people that have come to their cities in recent years. There are many health problems that come as a result of urbanization as people share a limited amount of resources and develop different lifestyles. Attention needs to be brought to these health problems so urban areas promote healthy living and are cleaner, safer areas to live.
References:
Leon, D. (2008). Cities, urbanization, and health. International Journal of Epidemiology, 37(1), 4-8.
Yadiv, K., Nikhil, S.V., Pandav, C. (2011). Urbanization and health challenges: need to fast track launch of the national urban health mission. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 36(1), 3-7.
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