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The Health of Urban Populations in Developing Countries

An Overview

  • Chapter
Handbook of Urban Health

6.0. Conclusion

Although our sketch of urban health in developing countries cannot substitute for the full treatment that the issues deserve, we hope that at least it may at least suggest the unexploited potential of social epidemiological research to illuminate urban health risks and behavior in these countries. The compartmentalization of health research to which we referred at the outset is both unfortunate and unnecessary. As we will discuss further in Chapter 17, there is no reason not to apply concepts such as neighborhood effects, personal and collective efficacy, and health externalities in studies of the cities of poor countries, and the research methods developed with Western cities in mind may well be put to good use in African, Asian, and Latin American cities. The spectrum of disease and health behavior evident in developing-country urban populations differs in many ways from what is seen in high-income countries, of course, but there are also broad similarities that should invite comparison. Ample material exists to enliven a global conversation on urban health research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Policy Research Division, Population Council, State University of New York, New York, New York

    Mark R. Montgomery

  2. Department of Economics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York

    Mark R. Montgomery

  3. The African Population and Health Research Centre, Nairobi, Kenya Africa

    Alex C. Ezeh

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies, New York Academy of Medicine, New York

    Sandro Galea  & David Vlahov  & 

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York

    Sandro Galea  & David Vlahov  & 

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Montgomery, M.R., Ezeh, A.C. (2005). The Health of Urban Populations in Developing Countries. In: Galea, S., Vlahov, D. (eds) Handbook of Urban Health. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-25822-1_10

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