By 2050, round 70% of the worldwide inhabitants is projected to reside in city areas. While cities present quite a few benefits, they’ll additionally pose well being dangers to folks and the surroundings.

“Thoughtful planning and creation of inclusive urban spaces can have a significant impact on reducing the number of deaths attributed to poor air quality, road traffic accidents, and, of course, chronic diseases,” says Dr Garry Aslanyan, host of the Global Health Matters podcast. “It also has the added benefit of enhancing social connections in city environments that can often feel isolating and lonely.”

But how can we remodel our cities to be more healthy locations?

In the newest Global Health Matters podcast episode, Aslanyan is joined by Silpa Wairatpanij, Committee Member of the Thailand Walking and Cycling Institute Foundation in Bangkok, and Jesús Carlos Soto, Head of Guadalajara’s Mobility and Transportation Department. They talk about methods for cities to boost themselves, together with increasing pedestrian and biking infrastructure and lowering street accidents, air pollution, and related well being issues.

1 – Gather Data

“The most important thing is scientific evidence,” says Wairatpanij. “Showing the emotional effect of changing the street, changing the city’s environment, is not enough. It doesn’t convince people to follow along.”

Wairatpanij suggests gathering plenty of info, together with public knowledge. It’s essential to carry onto this knowledge, particularly after making optimistic adjustments within the metropolis. This manner, you may present how these adjustments have helped, encouraging the federal government and native authorities to implement comparable enhancements sooner or later.

2 – Involve Civil Society

Soto says that the involvement of civil society is crucial to make change.

“We have a very active and organised civil society promoting mobility as a human right here in Guadalajara and in Mexico, in the whole country, and this involvement wants to make the rights of cyclists and pedestrians visible, the right to the city, the defence of the environment, have provoked that in Mexico and Guadalajara, we have taken important steps in this regard,” he tells Aslanyan.

3 – Traffic Fatalities Can be Prevented

Soto additionally says it’s important to know that the objective of reaching zero deaths and 0 severe accidents from street accidents is feasible. A basic first step is to know and perceive the causes of those street site visitors fatalities.

4 – Political Costs are OK

Finally, “there will always be political costs of doing the right thing,” Soto says. “Do not be afraid of the political costs if you do things correctly, very well planned with scientific evidence-based decisions and with the support of civil society organisations.”

In Thailand, the place ailments rank because the main 4 causes of demise and street accidents observe carefully because the fifth, Wairatpanij and his organisation have been selling strolling and biking within the metropolis as an alternative only for sport and train. Today, he’s working with the Partnership for Healthy Cities (PHC) to revamp the town streets to have extra space for facet walks and fewer house for automobiles by means of lane reductions, narrowing lanes and increasing facet walks on the crossing junctions, amongst different adjustments.

“It’s been an ongoing process … and we hope that by changing the environments of the cities to accommodate walking and cycling … it reduces sedentary activities, people have more activities, and that would reduce the cause of non-communicable diseases,” Wairatpanij says.

In Guadalajara, the place greater than 650 untimely deaths linked to poor air high quality occur annually, and street site visitors is the second reason for demise, Soto has been working to extend bicycle and pedestrian strips significantly.

“We know that every kilometre that is pedalled avoids emissions that affect health and generate cardiovascular improvement for the people using bicycles,” Soto says.

Listen to previous episodes of Global Health Matters on Health Policy Watch.

Image Credits: Global Health Matters Podcast.