Focus Area: Urban Health

Slides from the Urban Health Community of Practice webinar held on May 13, 2020

Slides from the February 2020 Urban Health Community of Practice webinar: Using DHS Data to Better Understand MNCH in Urban Areas, presented by Dr. Benjamin Mayala, The DHS Program, ICF International

The African continent is predicted to be home to over half of the expected global population growth between 2015 and 2050, highlighting the importance of addressing population health in Africa for improving public health globally. By 2050, nearly 60% of the population of the continent is expected to be living in urban areas and 35– 40% of children and adolescents globally are projected to be living in Africa. Urgent attention is therefore required to respond to this population growth - particularly in the context of an increasingly urban and young population. To this end, the Research Initiative for Cities Health and Equity in Africa (RICHE Africa) Network aims to support the development of evidence to inform policy and programming to improve urban health across the continent. This paper highlights the importance of action in the African continent for achieving global public health targets.

Despite an estimated one billion people around the world living in slums, most surveys of health and well-being do not distinguish between slum and non-slum urban residents. Identifying people who live in slums is important for research purposes and also to enable policymakers, programme managers, donors and non-governmental organisations to better target investments and services to areas of greatest deprivation. However, there is no consensus on what a slum is let alone how slums can be distinguished from non-slum urban precincts. Nor has attention been given to a more fine-grained classification of urban spaces that might go beyond a simple slum/non-slum dichotomy. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework to help tackle the related issues of slum definition and classification of the urban landscape.