Cities And Health

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31029, 7 April 1966, Page 16

Cities And Health

Today is World Health Day. The 125 countries which are members or associate members of the World Health Organisation have been asked to observe the eighteenth anniversary of the establishment of the organisation. The World Health Organisation has proclaimed as the theme for this day. “ Man and “ his Cities ”, The organisation is one of the main specialised agencies of the United Nations and its mission to improve the health and health services of the world’s population stems from the recognition in the charter of the United Nations that promotion of health, with its humanitarian, social, and economic implications, is one of the conditions essential to peace and well-being. Ten years ago W.H.O. launched a malaria eradication campaign, the greatest international health programme ever undertaken. It has achieved spectacular results. Guided by an executive board on which New Zealand has been represented for the last three years, W HO. has attacked such diseases as tuberculosis, still a major killer, the crippling tropical disease of yaws, and many other diseases which cause widespread suffering and economic loss. The organisation co-operates with the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and with the International Labour Organisation in nutrition and industrial health projects. It maintains a watch on epidemics all over the world, and co-ordinates measures against the spread of diseases through air and sea travel. It sets standards for drugs and advises on protection against radiation hazards. In this country the theme of man and cities may not appear to touch a major health problem comparable with diseases which kill millions of men, women, and children and disable millions more. New Zealanders are aware of, but not generally much concerned with, the influence of city life on mental and physical health. Much is already done to prevent or deal with delinquency, crime, prostitution, alcoholism, and excessive use of drugs. New Zealanders are at least conscious of the difficulties of many persons who move into cities and lose their former patterns of communal living. Yet our citydwellers suffer less than most from restricted space, less daylight, less fresh air, and more noise, and from a multitude of unnatural physical and mental pressures.

Over the last century, while the world’s population has doubled, city populations have increased five-fold and W.H.O. estimates that as much as a third of today’s city population “is herded “ together in conditions contrary to the requirements “ of healthy living ”. These people live in slums and shanty towns where these requirements are far from met. Elsewhere, health workers, professional people, and civic authorities still have much to do to create a harmonious environment for urban life. The riots in Los Angeles last year were an arresting and disastrous expression of tensions built up in an unsatisfactory city environment. In other continents, especially South America and Africa, and in the cities of the Middle East. India, and South-east Asia, people living in vast areas of squalor and disease, poor sanitation, and overcrowded housing suffer all the attendant discomforts, sickness, and frustrations that are the worst features of city life Today’s theme should remind people that improvements in urban living may be as important as doctors, scientists, medicines, and hospitals in the promotion of health.