Assignment on Urban Health

Urban Health

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
RATIONALE ..................................................................................................................................1
Profiling and description of Kentish town.......................................................................................2
Data observation .............................................................................................................................4
Data analysis and interpretation ......................................................................................................9
RECOMMENDATIONS ..............................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................11
s......................................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The urbanisation, its population and development characteristics and health management
has great impact upon urban public health. Increasing development, unsustainable practices and
pollution has lead to rapid degradation in air quality. Air is one of the basic element which is
required for the survival and thus degradation in its quality is harmful for healthy and safe living
(McCarthy, 2018). The study will analyse the air quality in Kentish town in Camden borough of
London. The study will first analyse the area and health profiling of ward so that data
observations can be made more precisely. Further the observed data will be analysed so that
impact of air quality in the ward can be analysed and suitable recommendations can be provided
to improve the urban health.
RATIONALE
With the sick city hypothesis it has been assumed that cities are home of parasites and
individuals have to regularly trying to get rid of this disease causing factors. The better health
care facilities, education and resources provides an urban health advantage. However, for
economically backward people condition remains challenging worsen. With the rapidly growing
urbanisation and technologies poor quality of air is becoming a silent threat. It is making
impossible for the urban population to even breath clean air (Wood and et.al., 2015). The
polluted air is causing several chronic diseases such as lung infections, asthma and respiratory
diseases.
Thus, it is vital that air quality degradation must be considered as the urban health penalty
which must be addressed as soon as possible. The mismanaged development plans, poor
governance, ignorance to urban health and rapid investments are the key factors responsible for
the 'urban health penalty (Jimenez-Bescos and Prewett, 2018)'. It has been observed by
environmental statistics that London boroughs along with other 2000 locations of UK are the
worst in terms of air quality. The increasing cocentration of Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and
particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) in air due to road traffic is increasing lung irritations,
breathing difficulties and other climate change issues (Mudway and et.al., 2019). For this study
Kentish town of Camden borough is chosen because it has been observed that after Kensington
& Chelsea, Camden has the highest percentage of nitrogen dioxide. The poor air quality is also
linked with miscarriage, dementia, heart and lung diseases and thus is significant factor in
shortening lives.
1

(Source: Pollution map reveals unsafe air quality at almost 2,000 UK sites, 2019)
According to the statistics presented by Health and exposure to pollution, 2019 around 75%
cardiovascular admissions in hospitals were related to PM2.5 in year 2010. Similarly, approx
9,400 premature deaths in London were result of PM2.5 and NO2 based poor quality of air.
Thus, it is essential that air quality must be taken as serious emergency health concern.
Profiling and description of Kentish town
Kentish town is situated to mid-north-east of Camden borough. By 2017 the population
of ward is 14,400. The population density of the ward is 140 persons per hectare. On the basis of
average density of borough Kentish town holds 8 ranking. The average population growth rate of
2
Illustration 1: Percentage of nitrogen dioxide which degrades air quality in various
borough's of London