Affiliations 

  • 1 Warwick Centre for Applied Health Research and Delivery, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. Electronic address: r.j.lilford@warwick.ac.uk
  • 2 Warwick Centre for Applied Health Research and Delivery, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
  • 3 International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK
  • 4 African Population and Health Research Centre, Manga Cl, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 5 Global Urban Observatory, Research and Capacity Development Branch, United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 6 School of Medicine, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
  • 7 United Nations University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 8 Oxford Policy Management, New Delhi, India
  • 9 African Population and Health Research Centre, Manga Cl, Nairobi, Kenya; School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Lancet, 2017 02 04;389(10068):559-570.
PMID: 27760702 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31848-7

Abstract

In the first paper in this Series we assessed theoretical and empirical evidence and concluded that the health of people living in slums is a function not only of poverty but of intimately shared physical and social environments. In this paper we extend the theory of so-called neighbourhood effects. Slums offer high returns on investment because beneficial effects are shared across many people in densely populated neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood effects also help explain how and why the benefits of interventions vary between slum and non-slum spaces and between slums. We build on this spatial concept of slums to argue that, in all low-income and-middle-income countries, census tracts should henceforth be designated slum or non-slum both to inform local policy and as the basis for research surveys that build on censuses. We argue that slum health should be promoted as a topic of enquiry alongside poverty and health.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.