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John Borrazzo, PhD, Office of Global Health, USAID, 3.07-075M, 3rd floor, RRB, Washington, DC, (202)712-4816, jborrazzo@usaid.gov
The vast majority of the world’s future population growth will take place in the cities of the developing world. Currently, the fastest-growing segments of the urban population are the poorest, many of whom live in informal slum settlements.
Currently, there are nearly one billion slum dwellers, facing the double threat of both traditional environmental health hazards, in particular the lack of sanitation and adequate wastewater disposal, as well as so-called “modern” environmental health threats, such as air pollution and industrial pollution.
Both modern and traditional threats have individual, community, and city-wide dimensions. For example, as a source of an environmental health problem, the lack of sanitation in a slum community causes environmental contamination that presents a threat to surrounding communities and to the city as a whole. The lack of adequate transportation planning creates a city-wide problem of air pollution. The inappropriate siting and lack of controls for industrial facilities, such as ore handling and smelting operations, can cause severe environmental health problems for nearby communities as well as citywide.
Similarly, the responses to such threats may, or should necessarily, be addressed at diverse levels. Individuals and households can be provided incentives to reduce the threats to themselves and well as the threats they generate, such as by increasing the willingness to pay for community sanitation services. Municipal policymakers can more effectively analyze the health threats of air and industrial pollution and use this information to advocate for improvements in transportation policy or the siting of industrial facilities. National policies can facilitate cost-effective responses; promotion of pollution prevention approaches is one example.
This presentation will illustrate each of these points with field-based examples, with particular attention to problems of the poor and the way in which particular threats were addressed with responses at multiple levels. Examples will be drawn from Peru, Egypt, and India.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.