MaximsNewsPEOPLE: MARGARET CHAN of WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

MaximsNewsPEOPLE: 07 April 2010 - WHO - UNAMA: Geneva - Margaret Chan, World Health Organization Director General: "In every corner of the world, certain city dwellers suffer, they suffer disproportionately from poor health and these inequities can be traced back to the differences in their social and living conditions.

"Ladies and gentlemen, cities are growing larger and larger and their populations of the poor are growing larger even faster.

"One of the best ways to measure urban harm, is really to look at the gaps in health outcomes between the rich and the poor living in the same cities, sometimes just a few blocks between them.

"Most obviously the health consequence of poverty and squalid living conditions are contagious in a city setting.

"They are detrimental to all city dwellers. In developing countries, the best urban governance can help produce 75 years or more of life expectancy but poor urban governance, life expectancy can be as low as 35 years."

Marking World Health Day 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) today (7 April) issued five calls to action to build a healthy and safe urban environment.

The five include, promoting urban planning for healthy behaviors and safety; improving urban living conditions; ensuring participatory urban governance; building inclusive cities that are accessible and age-friendly; and making urban areas resilient to emergencies and disasters.

Virtually all population growth over the next 30 years will be in urban areas, signaling that urbanization is here to stay. It is associated with many health challenges related to water, environment, violence and injury, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, harmful use of alcohol as well as the risks associated with disease outbreaks.

This year health-related events and activities take place in six cities (Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif) as people and organizations join the World Health Organizations campaign 1000 cities 1000 lives.
SOUNDBITE (English) Peter Graaff, Country Director of the World Health Organization in Afghanistan:
"In short, lifestyle-related health risks for both the rich and the poor have increased substantially due to urbanization.
Since the health conditions in urban slum especially require urgent attention, WHO urges city planners, our United Nations partners, civil society and community leaders to work together and to pool their resources and by that I mean their human capital predominantly - the resources and efforts to improve health and quality of life in order to reduce health inequity in urban slums. ................................ ( WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: WHO ) ........................................­... MaximsNewsPEOPLE , http://www.MaximsNewsPEOPLE.com
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