Urbanisation and health in China

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Peng Gong, Tsinghua University; Song Liang, Ohio State University; Elizabeth J. Carlton, University of California at Berkeley; Qingwu Jiang, Fudan University; Jianyong Wu, Emory University; Lei Wang, Beijing Normal University; Justin V Remais, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2012-03-03
• Publisher: Elsevier: Lancet
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2012 Elsevier
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61878-3
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Lancet
• ISSN: 0140-6736
• Volume: 379
• Issue: 9818
• Start Page: 843
• End Page: 852
• Grant/Funding Information: JVR is supported by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (grant K01AI091864), by the National Institutes of Health/National Science Foundation Ecology of Infectious Disease Programme (grant 0622743), and by the Emory Global Health Institute Faculty Distinction Fund.; PG is supported by the National High Technology Programme of China (grant 2009AA12200101).; SL is supported partly by a National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant (R01AI068854) to the University of California, Berkeley, and by Public Health Preparedness for Infectious Diseases at the Ohio State University.; EJC is supported by an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act supplement (grant R01AI068854-04S1) and by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grant R01AI068854).
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health; Environmental Sciences

Abstract

China has seen the largest human migration in history, and the country's rapid urbanisation has important consequences for public health. A provincial analysis of its urbanisation trends shows shifting and accelerating rural-to-urban migration across the country and accompanying rapid increases in city size and population. The growing disease burden in urban areas attributable to nutrition and lifestyle choices is a major public health challenge, as are troubling disparities in health-care access, vaccination coverage, and accidents and injuries in China's rural-to-urban migrant population. Urban environmental quality, including air and water pollution, contributes to disease both in urban and in rural areas, and traffic-related accidents pose a major public health threat as the country becomes increasingly motorised. To address the health challenges and maximise the benefits that accompany this rapid urbanisation, innovative health policies focused on the needs of migrants and research that could close knowledge gaps on urban population exposures are needed.