Unhealthy Urban India
Context:
- India is predicted to have the second-highest urban population in the world by 2035, with 675 million people living there. While it is widely acknowledged that cities have played a significant role in India’s explosive ascent to economic powerhouse status, nearly all of them are falling short of their citizens’ expectations when it comes to equity, the environment, and health.
India’s cities and their many health hazards:
- India’s urban population faces a variety of health hazards, like as
- the greatest air and noise pollution levels in the world
- little green space
- Lack of access to parks and pavements, which restricts active lives
- outdated transportation methods that worsen air pollution
- harmful availability to nutrient-dense, unhealthy foods
- unprecedented levels of heavy metal and hazardous chemical exposure.
- When coupled with inactivity, this combination of exposures significantly increases the chance of developing diabetes and heart disease, a condition known as cardiometabolic illness.
- By altering the constructed local environment and provisioning systems, a new paradigm for public health can be achieved by addressing the various and multiscaled social, environmental, and infrastructure risk factors that lead to cardiometabolic risk in cities.
- The provision of food, energy, mobility, housing, green infrastructure, water, and waste management is facilitated by seven major physical provisioning systems that are essential to human health, wellbeing, equity, and sustainability on a global scale.
- More than 90% of the world’s water and CO2 emissions are derived from malfunctioning provisioning systems, which also contribute to an estimated 19 million preventable deaths per year.
- A new narrative for enhancing health and welfare in cities is required, given the fundamental significance of India’s cities for the country’s future. Several high-level policy frameworks, such the New Urban Agenda, the Health in All Policies approach, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework of the United Nations, reflect this.
Actions with double or triple duty:
- In addition to helping India achieve its climate and equity goals, investments in clean energy and electric mobility present a once-in-a-lifetime chance to enhance health through the direct and significant influence that air pollution levels have on the country’s air quality.
- Even while these innovations are extremely significant, it’s possible that they won’t have as much of an impact on health outcomes as they would if they weren’t concurrently accompanied by changes in other provisioning systems like food, transportation, and green infrastructure.
- Research indicates that even minor modifications to these systems can have a significant impact on productivity and health, acting as dual or triple duty interventions. For instance, creating pavements, no-parking zones, and safe lanes for bicyclists and walkers can help lower the danger of air pollution while simultaneously increasing physical activity and decreasing inactive lives.
- On many Indian roadways, it is not only dangerous but almost difficult to walk or ride a bike because of the abundance of parked cars, street vendors, and human and building debris on the sidewalks.
A holistic approach to urban policy:
- The decrease in air pollution and its related health effects are presently the basis for nearly all studies that have simulated the economic and health effects of the clean energy transition in the transportation sector.
- Making sure that the switch to electric vehicles also makes room for active transportation options, like bike lanes and walking paths, may not only offer a way to connect the ‘last mile’, but it also has additional financial and health benefits beyond lowering air pollution, making such investments even more sensible. Therefore, boosting active transport through all available channels needs to be a key element of a clean energy policy.
- In a similar vein, policies that promote fresh produce and restrict added sugars and salt in beverages may have the greatest influence on health outcomes, including obesity, Type 2 diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular disease. These policies may also help to improve economic productivity in addition to health outcomes.
In summary:
- In cities in India, air pollution, unhealthy diets, and limited physical activity all contribute to a higher risk of morbidity and mortality than do most other risk factors combined, such as drug and cigarette use, alcohol consumption, and accidents. India must address these issues head-on if it hopes to make progress in the war on obesity, T2D, and cardiovascular disease. There will unavoidably be a street brawl over this.
