Challenges Facing Megacities in Public Health

This article discusses the challenges faced by megacities in public health, including population growth, environmental health issues, and infectious diseases. It also explores the background, current state, key considerations, and options for addressing these challenges.

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Master in Public Health
Introduction
Greetings Minister, my name is (name). I take this chance to present a brief note on the
challenges facing current and future megacities. These challenges are Key population growth
challenges, environmental health issues, and infectious diseases risk.
1. Issues: Reports show that megacities are experiencing a large number of population which
results in overcrowding. Also, there have been challenges of air pollution which due to various
industries operating in these megacities leading to various diseases such as lung cancer.
Additionally, water pollution has remained to be a critical challenge in various megacities.
Reports say that industries have been disposing of their waste in rivers resulting in water
pollution. However, it leads to infectious such as chlorella, diarrhea, and Malaria. Additionally,
noise pollution is also another critical issue in megacities. However, it results in hearing
problems among various people located in megacities
2. Background: Current global statistics show that there are 23 major megacities across the
world (Kourtit & Nijikamp, 2013). These statistics when compared to 60 decades back when
there were only two megacities in the world, it is evident that the urban population is increasing
daily. Recent research shows that by the year 2050, the urban population would be twice than the
current urban population (Sorensen & Okata, 2010). Thus, it would be an expectation of an
increase in the number of megacities around the globe in the same year.
However various factors have attributed the influx of people in megacities. Studies
show that people have been migration in megacities to look for better employment opportunities

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(Kraas, at el.,2013). Also, most young people are relocating in megacities to look for better
education which is not always available in rural areas. Studies also show that the high influx of
people in urban areas is mainly attributed to underdevelopment in rural areas. Thus, people
migrate in megacities to access better infrastructure such as electricity, and hospitals.
3. Current state: Recent reports show that megacities in some parts of the world particularly
Africa and some regions of South Asia are characterized by high population (Singh, 2015). Thus,
the over crowdedness in these megacities has called for a significant challenge among the people
living in those regions. For instance, poverty, crime, and social problems are major challenges
influencing people living in megacities. The over crowdedness has been attracted by
developments which attract more employment opportunities, thus leading to rural-urban
migration.
Recent research shows that infectious diseases are a critical threat in megacities. For instance,
HIV and H1N1 viruses are significant threats affecting the megacity population (Winthrop at el.,
2010, p.977). Consequently, this disease is caused by social interaction and some sedentary
lifestyles such as alcoholism.
Also, the authors report that air pollution is also a critical effect on the well-being of the
megacity population. Further studies show that air pollution is composed of nitrogen dioxide,
ozone, sulfur dioxide, and other harmful air pollution substances (Pascal at el.,2013, p.344)
Research says that this air pollution exposes a higher percentage of megacity population to fatal
diseases such as stroke and lung cancer. Similar research shows that some of these diseases have
attracted a higher percentage of death rates in some megacities.

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According to Pruss & Neira (2016) health issues is one of the critical problems in
megacities. When people are overcrowded in urban centers, there is a likelihood of health risks
which might be as a result of the social environment poor lifestyle. Some of the health issues
which are vulnerable to the urban population include noise pollution, air pollution, and water
pollution. The new finding shows that water pollution is an enormous challenge in the current
megacities. According to similar findings, water pollution is caused by various industries which
operate in megacities (Van & Sjerps, 2016, p.16).. Thus, these industries dispose of their waste
material in rivers and water catchment areas. Therefore, the water attracts many infectious
diseases such as Malaria and diarrhea which to the urban population resulting in deaths.
4. Key considerations: The government in various megacities should take into consideration all
these challenges affecting megacities. Thus, they should come up with better methods of
controlling and solving these challenges because they might have more impacts on future
megacities.
5. Options: Government should improve developments in rural areas to curb urban migration.
Additionally, the people residing in megacities should be involved in the decision-making
process so that they can air the challenges they are facing.
6. Conclusion: Megacities challenges remain devastating across the globe. However, these
challenges need to be addressed; thus better methods to prevent and minimize them should be
established. Moreover, the government in the respective megacities should address the
challenges with a lot of seriousness. Also, city to city collaboration should be established across
the world to solve these challenges together. Additionally, the new technology should be
implanted effectively in both developing and developed countries to provide numerous solution
to these challenges.

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Reference list
Kourtit, K. and Nijkamp, P., 2013. In praise of megacities in a global world. Regional
Science Policy & Practice, 5(2), pp.167-182.
Kraas, F., Aggarwal, S., Coy, M. and Mertins, G. eds., 2013. Megacities: our global
urban future. Springer Science & Business Media.
Pascal, M., Corso, M., Chanel, O., Declercq, C., Badaloni, C., Cesaroni, G., Henschel, S.,
Meister, K., Haluza, D., Martin-Olmedo, P. and Medina, S., 2013. Assessing the
public health impacts of urban air pollution in 25 European cities: results of the
Aphekom project. Science of the Total Environment, 449, pp.390-400.
Prüss-Üstün, A. and Neira, M., 2016. Preventing disease through healthy environments:
a global assessment of the burden of disease from environmental risks. World
Health Organization.
Singh, R.B. ed., 2015. Urban development challenges, risks and resilience in asian mega
cities. Tokyo: Springer.
Sorensen, A. and Okata, J. eds., 2010. Megacities: Urban form, governance, and
sustainability (Vol. 10). Springer Science & Business Media.
van Leeuwen, K. and Sjerps, R., 2016. Istanbul: the challenges of integrated water
resources management in Europa’s megacity. Environment, development and
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Winthrop, K.L., McNelley, E., Kendall, B., Marshall-Olson, A., Morris, C., Cassidy, M.,
Saulson, A. and Hedberg, K., 2010. Pulmonary nontuberculous mycobacterial

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disease prevalence and clinical features: an emerging public health
disease. American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 182(7),
pp.977-982.