Healthy Cities

Definition

The term healthy cities (HC) refers to a policy and activity at the village, town, or city levels to promote health. This follows the World Health Organization’s (WHO) conceptualization of health as one’s physical, psychological, and social well-being and current health professionals’ growing emphasis on people’s self-care. Furthermore, HC reflect the emerging need to allocate resources to disease prevention and to the maintenance of health and well-being, beyond treatment of existing illnesses alone. When this is done at the level of a town or city, “peer pressure” becomes positive and can influence people toward more healthy lifestyles including balanced diets, physical activity, smoking cessation, moderate alcohol consumption, and provision of communal social support. Furthermore, recognizing that environmental factors influence health (e.g., crowding, pollution), HC also provide an excellent opportunity to change one’s environment in order to foster health and...