History of Urban Health in Baltimore City
The study of urban health focuses on the environmental, cultural, and social determinants of health that directly affect the physical and mental well-being of people living in urban areas. People living in cities and other urban spaces are living with a higher concentration of people around them than those in suburban or rural areas, and as a result are exposed to higher rates of disease and infection. There are also environmental conditions, such as higher rates of air and noise pollution, that affect those living in urban cities, both domestically and internationally. With the recent rise in urbanization in the last century, there’s been a massive spike in the number of people worldwide that live in cities. This increase, along with changes in public policy and shifts in the benefits available for those of lower socioeconomic standing, have led to the formation of health disparities between those in these settings compared to those in other areas.
There have been several medical and public health institutions created in cities to focus on the study, analysis, and development of intervention methods for major urban health issues.
History
a. National origins of urban health concerns
b. Rise in awareness in Baltimore City
c. History of Public Policy
City Health Disparity Statistics
Social Determinants of Health
a. Environmental
i. Built Environment in suburbs vs city (comparison of Baltimore County conditions to Baltimore City conditions)
ii. Air pollution
iii. Funding problems
b. Cultural
c. Political
d. Access to resources
e. Education system
Generational Effect
- Trends in chronic diseases
Controversy
- Relationship between Hopkins hospital and the Baltimore community
Practice
- Current institutions
- Intervention methods
- Advocacy
-Public Policy There are a few ways to go at this. If you'd like to set up a page for Urban health, you can certainly make an outline. I'm interested in this, in part, because it would be interesting to see when urban health reimerged historically as a discrete field of study. Obviously early public health work might have better fit this model prior to getting to a focus on specific diseases but I'm not sure. One option would be to do a bit of a historical search on the term "urban health" and figure out when it was introduced (could also look at journal of urban health, etc)... The rest would be interesting as well. Would it help to discuss sources? Gingerninjagirl (talk) 20:16, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
^^^ response: What do you think about the idea of using different journal articles (from various sources) that highlight the major concerning points of urban health as my sources for the page? I definitely want to use the Journal of urban health and have started collecting articles to use on a separate document. After doing some research over the break, I think I've underestimated how large of a subject this is (from food deserts to climate concerns, political problems, it's a lot lol). I think like you said, it might be better to focus on the history of urban health as a concept and from there outline areas of study within the umbrella of urban health (through the use of articles from researchers in each field), while also possibly identifying major players in the movement that shifted focus on urban health (but that's something that can be done in the history section, like talking about the establishment of the Urban Health Institute here at Hopkins). I'd definitely like to talk to you about this after class next week to see what you think!!