Urban Health & Wellbeing: Recent Episodes
Urban Health & Wellbeing
The Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme (UHWB) is a global science programme and interdisciplinary body of the International Science Council (ISC, previously ICSU), supported by the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) and the United Nations University (UNU). It's International Programme Office (IPO) is hosted by the Institute of Urban Environment (IUE) of the Chinese Academy of sciences (CAS) in Xiamen, China.
If you like this podcast, feel free to get in touch by sending a mail to uhwb@iue.ac.cn, or visit urbanhealth.cn.
We chatted with Prof. XiaoFeng Yi, a senior city planner and a certified planner based in Beijing. As a senior urban planner in China with 20 years of experience, he has been in charge of making many different kinds of urban plans across China, and also experienced the evolution of a macro paradigm shift in China’s urban planning.In this episode, Prof. Yi shared with us his expert insights on the history of urban planning in modern China, the paradigm change in China’s urban planning, the role of "health" in the evolving practices and the future trend of people-centered urban planning in China.
Nathalie Röbbel shares her work as Unit Head leading WHO's work on an integrated, systems, multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder inclusive approach to urban health.
Dr. Kristie L. Ebi, Professor in the Center for Health and the Global Environment, discusses how a systems approach could contribute to key transformations towards climate resilient development pathways for health and wellbeing. Dr. Kristie L. Ebi is Professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment. She has been conducting research and practice on the health risks of climate variability and change for nearly 25 years, focusing on understanding sources of vulnerability; estimating current and future health risks of climate change; designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce risks in multi-stressor environments; and estimating the health co-benefits of mitigation policies. She has supported multiple countries in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific in assessing their vulnerabilities and implementing adaptation policies and programs. She has been an author on multiple national and international climate change assessments, including the fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment and the IPCC 6th Assessment Report and Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C.
Prof. Peter Head devoted his decades-long career to improving the urban environment and health and wellbeing all over the world. He departed in civil engineering, designing safe and long-term resilient infrastructures and urban plans, sustainable development goals, and most recently, promoting impact financing in Africa. In this episode, we turn to Peter for his well-versed insights on how to improve health and well-being, particularly in the current global context.
Information mismanagement, supply chain vulnerability, and urban planning insufficiencies... all boil down to the issue of governance. Veteran urban governance expert Nicholas You talks to us about the core urban health issues he observed during the COVID, exemplified by his personal and professional experiences travelling between two homes in Kenya and Italy, and through his directorship for the Guangzhou Award for Urban Innovation.
If you like the discussion in this episode, please check out our other episodes and feel free to get in touch by sending a mail to uhwb@iue.ac.cn, or visit urbanhealth.cn. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
We invite international organisations, urban planning and governance thought leaders and urban health scientists who have worked and have been associated with the Urban Health Well Being programme to share their knowledge, insights, views and outlooks, and to seek ways for collaborating and implementing an inter- and transdisciplinary science agenda for cities’, peoples’ and planetary health.
We talk about - Why is urban health and wellbeing such an important subject? - What are the major problems facing the policy integration of scientific knowledge of urban health and wellbeing? - What are the citizens understanding, autonomy, and responsibilities in urban health and wellbeing around the world? - How to connect and consolidate more effectively the global urban health community to channel existing and new knowledge into shaping and formulating policy and action? - Which thematic or problem areas require attention most urgently? - Institutional arrangements, technological means, broad public campaign… How to develop and implement global collective action for urban health and wellbeing?