The BMJ: Cities for global health
Majid Ezzati, a professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, and colleagues address the role of cities in health in the first article of a new BMJ series. The authors write, “The concentration of knowledge and innovation, economic activity, health care, education, and other public services endows cities with the potential to deliver substantial improvements to the health and wellbeing of their residents and those of other parts of the country. Further, the local politics in cities, whereby politicians and citizens live side by side as members of the same community, provide an opportunity to avoid and resist the exclusionary and austerity trends seen in national politics and economics around the world and to make health inequalities the central focus of urban health policies. … The BMJ is launching a series of articles on important themes in urban health … The series will focus on actions that cities can take to reduce health inequalities and deliver on their potential to create better and healthier lives for all” (10/3).