








key: cord-261218-tgbw81ua
authors: Vardoulakis, Sotiris; Salmond, Jennifer; Krafft, Thomas; Morawska, Lidia
title: Urban Environmental Health Interventions towards the Sustainable Development Goals
date: 2020-08-07
journal: Sci Total Environ
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141530
sha: 
doc_id: 261218
cord_uid: tgbw81ua

Abstract The aim of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030. Since the majority of the global population lives in cities, it is crucial to identify, evaluate and implement urban interventions (such as such as zero carbon housing, active transport, better urban connectivity, air pollution control, clean household fuels, and protection from heat and flood events) that will improve health and wellbeing and make our natural and built environment more sustainable. This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) comprises of 14 diverse case studies, methods and tools that provide suggestions and interventions which directly or indirectly support the achievement of the UN SDGs.

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, have focused the attention of researchers, practitioners and policy-makers on interventions that have the potential to provide multiple benefits ("co-benefits") for health, the environment, and the economy, particularly in urban settings were two-thirds of the world population will live by 2050 (UN 2018) .

Progress towards the SDGs has being made in many areas, but, overall, action to meet the Goals is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required to achieve their specific targets and bring about transformational change. In September 2019, the UN Secretary-General called on all sectors of society to mobilize for a decade of action to accelerate sustainable solutions to the world's biggest challenges, ranging from poverty and gender to climate change, inequality and closing the finance gap (UN 2020).

Many of these challenges are experienced in cities around the world, and particularly in rapidly urbanising low and middle-income countries, which face overpopulation, lack of adequate resources and infrastructure, climate change, urban heat islands, extreme weather, air pollution, and related illnesses, inequalities and productivity losses (Salmond et al. 2018; Vardoulakis et al. 2016; Vardoulakis and Kinney 2019) . At the same time, the complex links between the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (such as cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases), urban form and environmental quality are becoming increasingly recognised.

Identifying and promoting effective urban environmental health interventions for addressing the SDGs, such as reducing carbon emissions (Goal 13), which can enhance good health and wellbeing (Goal 3), is urgent (Howden-Chapman et al. 2020) . Well-planned, sustainable, changes to urban transport, housing, land use, renewable energy generation, and waste management have the potential to lead to improvements in air and water quality and liveability of urban environments providing multiple benefits including improved public health, reduced inequalities and higher productivity in cities . Furthermore, the use of smart sensing technologies and mobile platforms, and the development of advanced techniques for the analysis of big data, when applied appropriately, can revolutionise environmental and public health management in cities (Salmond et al. 2017) . Citizen science, awareness raising and behaviour change campaigns are also expected to have an impact on environmental sustainability and urban health, although it is currently unclear whether benefits of such interventions can be sustained over time (Bonney et al. 2016 ).

The Healthy-Polis Consortium for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability (www.healthy-polis.org) aims to contribute to the implementation of the SDGs by identifying and evaluating specific policy initiatives, case studies, evidence gaps, and opportunities for research and translation into environmental public health practice in cities around the world. In this Virtual Special Issue, we present a collection of such case studies from 10 countries (4 high income, and 6 middle or low income countries; Table 1 ) and discuss their implications for achieving the SDGs (Figure 1 ). 

The research presented in this this Virtual Special Issue, highlights a number of key interventions aimed at achieving the SDGs and their consequent pathways to health and environmental impact. One of the main direct effects of climate change is the increase in global average temperature, as well as in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events (e.g. heatwaves). This has a disproportionate impact on built up areas due to the Urban Heat Island effect, housing overheating and overcrowding, and the vulnerability of the resident population (Heaviside et al. 2017) . Two of the studies included in the special issue focus on temperature related impacts on health and wellbeing due to the poor thermal performance of houses in Brisbane, Australia (Asumadu-Sakyi et al. 2019), and the mitigation strategies aiming to reduce radiant heat load on buildings in Korea (Park et al. 2020 ).

One of the key challenges when attempting to address Goal 3 (health and wellbeing) is to improve both ambient and household air quality. Xue et al. (2020) focused on satellite-derived air pollution (PM 2.5 ) as an evaluation index for health and wellbeing. In their paper, the temporal trends of PM 2.5 and the quantitative potential impact of environmental governance on PM 2.5 were analysed for China. Using environmental regulation intensity and synergy to quantify the influence of governance, they concluded that regulatory measures should be enhanced to further decrease PM 2.5 in the future ( In a different context, Adesina et al. (2020) assessed the impact of solid fuel burning in an indoor and ambient environment near coal-fired power plants in South Africa using continuous monitoring of PM 4 in two houses, of which only one used coal as a primary source of energy. They found significant differences in indoor air pollution levels during the winter season, but also at times high ambient concentrations, which indicated that decarbonisation of household energy and power generation could bring significant benefits for air quality and public health (Adesina et al. 2020) . In a comprehensive analysis of cooking solutions in Western Africa, co-benefits of clean cooking solutions (Goal 7, affordable and clean energy) at household level were analysed in relation to Goals 3 (health and wellbeing), 5 (gender equality), and 13 (climate action). Interestingly, the most important co-benefit was related to gender equality (Goal 5), representing 60-97% of the total economic benefit of the intervention (Mazorra et al. 2020). Carmichael et al. (2020) explored the use of public health research and evidence in policy to regulate new buildings in England to deliver improved public health, climate resilience and a reduced carbon footprint. They showed that public health evidence was hardly referenced in policy, and that a narrow focus on climate mitigation in building regulations results in both positive and negative impacts on health. This highlights the need for a systems approach around urban interventions (Carmichael et al. 2020 ). Human vulnerability assessment is an important tool within the scope of Goal 13 (climate action), as it can help develop adaptation strategies in the context of regional climate change. Vommaro et al. (2020) demonstrated the application of a modelling method to evaluate human vulnerability to climate change in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. Using a municipal vulnerability index based on socioeconomic, demographic, climate, epidemiological, and environmental aspects, they identified the most vulnerable areas under climate change (Vommaro et al. 2020 ). Wu et al. (2019) identified good practice and lessons learned from China's response to severe flooding in Anhui province in 2016. Good practice included using early warning systems to advise communities of risks and enforce evacuation in the flood zone, preparing and using schools as shelters with open-ended periods of operation, and providing stable shelter accommodations with medical and public health services, clean drinking water and food, sanitation, and toilet hygiene through multiagency cooperation. They concluded that disaster mitigation strategies needs to be integrated with climate adaptation plans in cities (Wu et al. 2019) .

Two studies from New Zealand focused on active transport (Macmillan et al. 2020) , and on integrated urban planning and regeneration (Howden-Chapman et al. 2020) . Macmillan et al. (2020) used an active transport case study from Auckland to illustrate the complex causal pathways that contribute to achieving several SDGs, including Goal 11 (sustainable cities) and Goal 10 (reduced inequalities 

There is limited evidence in research, policies and in the SDGs about the impact of environmental factors on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa, although 80% of NCDs are taking place in low-and middle-income countries and are linked to a third of the deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. Rother (2020) poses the question: what would these statistics look like if environmental risk factors (e.g., pollution, climate change) were prevented and controlled. Rother (2020) presents a framework for understanding climatic impacts on climate-sensitive NCDs and achieving the SDGs. This explains how current global mitigation interventions in high income urban settings, with implied health co-benefits for NCD reduction (i.e. use of less polluting vehicles, cycling, walking, public transport, green spaces), experience major implementation challenges in sub-Saharan African cities (i.e. too costly, lack of availability, poor road conditions, gender and cultural norms, security problems). The article recommends more support for research on the climate-NCD nexus, ensuring health professional training includes sustainable health education, and including a focus on climate change and health in primary and secondary school curricula (Rother 2020) .

In the Decade of Action for SDG implementation (UN 2020), the recovery pathways from COVID-19 are an opportunity for governments, urban planners, environmental public health practitioners, and other stakeholders to Build Back Better our cities (WRI 2020). The Healthy-Polis VSI: Urban Environmental Health Interventions towards the Sustainable Development Goals provides diverse evidence, case studies and tools to inspire action in cities and regions around the world, so they can emerge healthier and more sustainable future post COVID-19. The interventions and tools discussed can be used to provide multiple environmental health solutions, which are context specific. For this reason, it is important to consider the intended and unintended consequences of these interventions by using a cross-disciplinary systems approach and involving all relevant stakeholders in discussions and decision making. Promoting climatesensitive urban policies, such as zero carbon housing, active transport, better urban connectivity, clean household fuels, and protection from heat and flood events, will help improve health and wellbeing in cities as we move towards achieving and sustaining the SDGs.

Contrasting indoor and ambient particulate matter concentrations and thermal comfort in coal and non-coal burning households at south africa highveld

Seasonal temperature patterns and durations of acceptable temperature range in houses in brisbane, australia

Can citizen science enhance public understanding of science?

Healthy buildings for a healthy city: Is the public health evidence base informing current building policies?

The urban heat island: Implications for health in a changing environment

Evaluating natural experiments to measure the co-benefits of urban policy interventions to reduce carbon emissions in new zealand

Verification of a bioclimatic modeling system in a growing suburb in melbourne

Suburb-level changes for active transport to meet the sdgs: Causal theory and a new zealand case study

Integrating four radiant heat load mitigation strategies is an efficient intervention to improve human health in urban environments

Controlling and preventing climate-sensitive noncommunicable diseases in urban subsaharan africa

Towards the integrated study of urban climate, air pollution, and public health

Can big data tame a "naughty" world? The Canadian Geographer

Microenv: A microsimulation model for quantifying the impacts of environmental policies on population health and health inequalities

Sustainable development goals decade of action

Challenges and opportunities for urban environmental health and sustainability: The healthy-polis initiative

Local action on outdoor air pollution to improve public health

Grand challenges in sustainable cities and health

Contributions of municipal vulnerability map of the population of the state of maranhão (brazil) to the sustainable development goals

After the crisis: How covid-19 can drive transformational change in cities

Planned sheltering as an adaptation strategy to climate change: Lessons learned from the severe flooding in anhui province of china in 2016

Satellite-derived spatiotemporal pm2.5 concentrations and variations from 2006 to 2017 in china

Simulation analysis of natural lighting of residential buildings in xi'an, china

We acknowledge in-kind contributions and support from the Healthy-Polis International Consortium for Urban Environmental Health and Sustainability.

