Displaying publications 1 - 20 of 95 in total

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  1. Fulltext Wanted: a Transdisciplinary Knowledge Domain for Urban Health
    Lawrence RJ, Gatzweiler FW
    J Urban Health, 2017 08;94(4):592-596.
    PMID: 28695402 DOI: 10.1007/s11524-017-0182-x
    The current disconnection between access to increasing amounts of data about urbanization, health, and other global changes and the conflicting meanings and values of that data has created uncertainty and reduced the ability of people to act upon available information which they do not necessarily understand. We see a disconnection between increasing data availability and data processing capability and capacity. In response to this disconnection, modeling has been attributed an important role in international and national research programs in order to predict the future based on past and recent trends. Predictive models are often data heavy and founded on assumptions which are difficult to verify, especially regarding urban health issues in specific contexts. Producing large volumes of data warrants debate about what data are prerequisites for better understanding human health in changing urban environments. Another concern is how data and information can be used to apply knowledge. Making sense of empirical knowledge requires a new transdisciplinary knowledge domain created by a commitment to convergence between researchers in multiple academic disciplines and other actors and institutions in cities. Disciplinary-based researchers are no longer the sole producers of empirical knowledge. Today, diverse kinds of knowledge are becoming an emergent product of multiple societal stakeholders acting collectively to address challenges that impact on their habitat, their livelihood, and their health. Insights from complexity science also require a fundamental rethinking of the role and responsibility of human agency while admitting rather than denying complexity and radical uncertainty.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  2. Validation of the Malaysian Coping Strategy Instrument to measure household food insecurity in Kelantan, Malaysia
    Sulaiman N, Shariff ZM, Jalil RA, Taib MN, Kandiah M, Samah AA
    Food Nutr Bull, 2011 Dec;32(4):354-64.
    PMID: 22590969
    Food insecurity occurs whenever people are not able to access enough food at all times for an active and healthy life or when adequate and safe food acquired by socially acceptable ways is not available.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  3. Urbanization, Extreme Events, and Health: The Case for Systems Approaches in Mitigation, Management, and Response
    Siri JG, Newell B, Proust K, Capon A
    Asia Pac J Public Health, 2016 Mar;28(2 Suppl):15S-27S.
    PMID: 26219559 DOI: 10.1177/1010539515595694
    Extreme events, both natural and anthropogenic, increasingly affect cities in terms of economic losses and impacts on health and well-being. Most people now live in cities, and Asian cities, in particular, are experiencing growth on unprecedented scales. Meanwhile, the economic and health consequences of climate-related events are worsening, a trend projected to continue. Urbanization, climate change and other geophysical and social forces interact with urban systems in ways that give rise to complex and in many cases synergistic relationships. Such effects may be mediated by location, scale, density, or connectivity, and also involve feedbacks and cascading outcomes. In this context, traditional, siloed, reductionist approaches to understanding and dealing with extreme events are unlikely to be adequate. Systems approaches to mitigation, management and response for extreme events offer a more effective way forward. Well-managed urban systems can decrease risk and increase resilience in the face of such events.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  4. Urban vs. rural factors that affect adult asthma
    Jie Y, Isa ZM, Jie X, Ju ZL, Ismail NH
    Rev Environ Contam Toxicol, 2013;226:33-63.
    PMID: 23625129 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-6898-1_2
    In this review, our aim was to examine the influence of geographic variations on asthma prevalence and morbidity among adults, which is important for improving our understanding, identifying the burden, and for developing and implementing interventions aimed at reducing asthma morbidity. Asthma is a complex inflammatory disease of multifactorial origin, and is influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. The disparities in asthma prevalence and morbidity among the world's geographic locations are more likely to be associated with environmental exposures than genetic differences. In writing this article, we found that the indoor factors most consistently associated with asthma and asthma-related symptoms in adults included fuel combustion, mold growth, and environmental tobacco smoke in both urban and rural areas. Asthma and asthma-related symptoms occurred more frequently in urban than in rural areas, and that difference correlated with environmental risk exposures, SES, and healthcare access. Environmental risk factors to which urban adults were more frequently exposed than rural adults were dust mites,high levels of vehicle emissions, and a westernized lifestyle.Exposure to indoor biological contaminants in the urban environment is common.The main risk factors for developing asthma in urban areas are atopy and allergy to house dust mites, followed by allergens from animal dander. House dust mite exposure may potentially explain differences in diagnosis of asthma prevalence and morbidity among adults in urban vs. rural areas. In addition, the prevalence of asthma morbidity increases with urbanization. High levels of vehicle emissions,Western lifestyles and degree of urbanization itself, may affect outdoor and thereby indoor air quality. In urban areas, biomass fuels have been widely replaced by cleaner energy sources at home, such as gas and electricity, but in most developing countries, coal is still a major source of fuel for cooking and heating, particularly in winter. Moreover, exposure to ETS is common at home or at work in urban areas.There is evidence that asthma prevalence and morbidity is less common in rural than in urban areas. The possible reasons are that rural residents are exposed early in life to stables and to farm milk production, and such exposures are protective against developing asthma morbidity. Even so, asthma morbidity is disproportionately high among poor inner-city residents and in rural populations. A higher proportion of adult residents of nonmetropolitan areas were characterized as follows:aged 55 years or older, no previous college admission, low household income, no health insurance coverage, and could not see a doctor due to healthcare service availability, etc. In rural areas, biomass fuels meet more than 70% of the rural energy needs. Progress in adopting modern energy sources in rural areas has been slow. The most direct health impact comes from household energy use among the poor, who depend almost entirely on burning biomass fuels in simple cooking devices that are placed in inadequately ventilated spaces. Prospective studies are needed to assess the long-term effects of biomass smoke on lung health among adults in rural areas.Geographic differences in asthma susceptibility exist around the world. The reason for the differences in asthma prevalence in rural and urban areas may be due to the fact that populations have different lifestyles and cultures, as well as different environmental exposures and different genetic backgrounds. Identifying geographic disparities in asthma hospitalizations is critical to implementing prevention strategies,reducing morbidity, and improving healthcare financing for clinical asthma treatment. Although evidence shows that differences in the prevalence of asthma do exist between urban and rural dwellers in many parts of the world, including in developed countries, data are inadequate to evaluate the extent to which different pollutant exposures contribute to asthma morbidity and severity of asthma between urban and rural areas.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  5. Urban health in the post-2015 agenda
    Talukder S, Capon A, Nath D, Kolb A, Jahan S, Boufford J
    Lancet, 2015 Feb 28;385(9970):769.
    PMID: 25752169 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60428-7
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health/trends*
  6. Fulltext Urban health and the prevalence of non-communicable diseases in Malaysia
    Normaz Wana Ismail, Sudha Sivadas
    Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2020;16(2):3-9.
    MyJurnal
    Introduction: Urbanisation is a key determinant of population health. Malaysia’s exemplary economic growth in the early 1990s and the consequent development and urbanisation led to significant changes in health, lifestyle and quality of life. Rising expectations, changing demographics and nutrition and disease transitions were challenges synonymous to an increasingly urban Malaysia. As the Government targets optimal population health, this paper aims to explore one of the many challenges of urbanisation, namely the prevalence of non-communicable diseases or NCDs. For the purpose of this paper, NCD is proxied by Diabetes Mellitus. Methods: This study is based the 2015 National Health and Morbidity Survey, which is a cross-sectional population-based survey, involving 30,000 re- spondents. Given the binomial nature of the survey variables, the multinomial Probit model was employed using the STATA statistical software. Results: Generally, age, gender and race are significant in determining health outcomes. Socioeconomically, all three variables of income, education and employment are significant. For lifestyle factors, findings show that only the weight and physically active status have a role in determining health outcomes. Finally, the urban variable is also positive and significant. Conclusion: Findings show that the prevalence of Diabetes Melli- tus, is rising along with urbanisation and that there is a health penalty for the urban population and also for those who do not embrace healthy lifestyles. Additionally, other factors are equally important as urban health determinants, encompassing both the demographic and socioeconomic factors.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  7. Fulltext Urban governance and the systems approaches to health-environment co-benefits in cities
    Oliveira JA, Doll CN, Siri J, Dreyfus M, Farzaneh H, Capon A
    Cad Saude Publica, 2015 Nov;31 Suppl 1:25-38.
    PMID: 26648361 DOI: 10.1590/0102-311X00010015
    The term "co-benefits" refers to positive outcomes accruing from a policy beyond the intended outcome, often or usually in other sectors. In the urban context, policies implemented in particular sectors (such as transport, energy or waste) often generate multiple co-benefits in other areas. Such benefits may be related to the reduction of local or global environmental impacts and also extend into the area of public health. A key to identifying and realising co-benefits is the adoption of systems approaches to understand inter-sectoral linkages and, in particular, the translation of this understanding to improved sector-specific and city governance. This paper reviews a range of policies which can yield health and climate co-benefits across different urban sectors and illustrates, through a series of cases, how taking a systems approach can lead to innovations in urban governance which aid the development of healthy and sustainable cities.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  8. Understanding the systemic nature of cities to improve health and climate change mitigation
    Chapman R, Howden-Chapman P, Capon A
    Environ Int, 2016 Sep;94:380-387.
    PMID: 27126780 DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2016.04.014
    Understanding cities comprehensively as systems is a costly challenge and is typically not feasible for policy makers. Nevertheless, focusing on some key systemic characteristics of cities can give useful insights for policy to advance health and well-being outcomes. Moreover, if we take a coevolutionary systems view of cities, some conventional assumptions about the nature of urban development (e.g. the growth in private vehicle use with income) may not stand up. We illustrate this by examining the coevolution of urban transport and land use systems, and institutional change, giving examples of policy implications. At a high level, our concern derives from the need to better understand the dynamics of urban change, and its implications for health and well-being. At a practical level, we see opportunities to use stylised findings about urban systems to underpin policy experiments. While it is now not uncommon to view cities as systems, policy makers appear to have made little use so far of a systems approach to inform choice of policies with consequences for health and well-being. System insights can be applied to intelligently anticipate change - for example, as cities are subjected to increasing natural system reactions to climate change, they must find ways to mitigate and adapt to it. Secondly, systems insights around policy cobenefits are vital for better informing horizontal policy integration. Lastly, an implication of system complexity is that rather than seeking detailed, 'full' knowledge about urban issues and policies, cities would be well advised to engage in policy experimentation to address increasingly urgent health and climate change issues.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  9. Fulltext Transmission potential of Wuchereria bancrofti by Culex quinquefasciatus in urban areas of Malaysia
    Vythilingam I, Tan CH, Nazni WA
    Trop Biomed, 2005 Jun;22(1):83-5.
    PMID: 16880760 MyJurnal
    Laboratory strain of the Malaysian Culex quinquefasciatus was susceptible to Wuchereria bancrofti. Thirty three percent of the Cx. quinquefasciatus that fed on W. bancrofti patient were infective after 12-14 days. There is a possibility for W. bancrofti to occur in the urban areas of the Malaysia in the near future.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  10. Traditional diets and meal patterns in South Africa
    Labadarios D, Walker AR, Blaauw R, Walker BF
    World Rev Nutr Diet, 1996;79:70-108.
    PMID: 9111811
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  11. The urban poor and obstetric outcome
    Leigh B, Ebrahim GJ, Lovell H, Yusof K
    J Trop Pediatr, 1983 10;29(5):265-7.
    PMID: 6644850 DOI: 10.1093/tropej/29.5.265
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  12. The reliability of a rapid molecular detection method in determining the prevalence of rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis in an urban district health facility in Malaysia
    Ding CH, Ismail Z, Sulong A, Wahab AA, Gan B, Mustakim S, et al.
    Malays J Pathol, 2020 Dec;42(3):401-407.
    PMID: 33361721
    INTRODUCTION: Rifampicin is a key first-line antimycobacterial agent employed for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). This study sought to obtain prevalence data on rifampicin-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis among smear-positive PTB patients in the Klang District of Malaysia.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 103 patients from the Chest Clinic of Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah with sputum smears positive for acid-fast bacilli were included in this cross-sectional study. All sputa were tested using Xpert MTB/RIF to confirm the presence of M. tuberculosis complex and detect rifampicin resistance. Sputa were also sent to a respiratory medicine institute for mycobacterial culture. Positive cultures were then submitted to a reference laboratory, where isolates identified as M. tuberculosis complex underwent drug susceptibility testing (DST).

    RESULTS: A total of 58 (56.3%) patients were newly diagnosed and 45 (43.7%) patients were previously treated. Xpert MTB/RIF was able to detect rifampicin resistance with a sensitivity and specificity of 87.5% and 98.9%, respectively. Assuming that a single resistant result from Xpert MTB/RIF or any DST method was sufficient to denote resistance, a total of 8/103 patients had rifampicinresistant M. tuberculosis. All eight patients were previously treated for PTB (p<0.05). The overall prevalence of rifampicin resistance among smear-positive PTB patients was 7.8%, although it was 17.8% among the previously treated ones.

    CONCLUSION: The local prevalence of rifampicin-resistant M. tuberculosis was particularly high among previously treated patients. Xpert MTB/RIF can be employed in urban district health facilities not only to diagnose PTB in smear-positive patients, but also to detect rifampicin resistance with good sensitivity and specificity.

    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health Services
  13. Fulltext The relationship of dental caries and dental fear in Malaysian adolescents: a latent variable approach
    Esa R, Ong AL, Humphris G, Freeman R
    BMC Oral Health, 2014;14:19.
    PMID: 24621226 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6831-14-19
    To investigate the role of geography (place of residence) as a moderator in the relationship between dental caries disease and treatment experience and dental fear in 16-year-olds living in Malaysia.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health/statistics & numerical data
  14. The prevalence of enamel opacities in permanent teeth of 11-12 year-old school children in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Yusoff N, Jaafar N, Razak IA, Chew YY, Ismail N, Bulgiba AM
    Community Dent Health, 2008 Mar;25(1):55-8.
    PMID: 18435236
    To determine the prevalence, distribution, severity and treatment need of enamel opacities among 11-12 year-old school children in a fluoridated urban community.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health/statistics & numerical data
  15. The present problems and future needs of primary health care in Malaysia
    Ho TM
    Int J Health Serv, 1988;18(2):281-91.
    PMID: 3378859 DOI: 10.2190/EJ77-C1UH-KHMQ-8HAX
    This article examines the numerous problems faced by primary health care in Malaysia, care that traditionally has been a private sector activity. While general practitioners have adapted, and are continually adapting, to the needs of a multiracial society with diverse cultural patterns, it is hoped that with the emergence of a dynamic discipline of family practice, family doctors will be able to provide a sophisticated form of primary health care that will serve the needs of the people.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  16. The place of health and the health of place: dengue fever and urban governance in Putrajaya, Malaysia
    Mulligan K, Elliott SJ, Schuster-Wallace C
    Health Place, 2012 May;18(3):613-20.
    PMID: 22310527 DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.01.001
    This case study investigates the connections among urban planning, governance and dengue fever in an emerging market context in the Global South. Key informant interviews were conducted with leading figures in public health, urban planning and governance in the planned city of Putrajaya, Malaysia. Drawing on theories of urban political ecology and ecosocial epidemiology, the qualitative study found the health of place - expressed as dengue-bearing mosquitoes and dengue fever in human bodies in the urban environment - was influenced by the place of health in a hierarchy of urban priorities.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  17. The nutritional status of children in an urban squatter community in Malaysia
    Yap SB, Teoh ST
    Asia Pac J Public Health, 1989;3(4):297-300.
    PMID: 2517875
    An anthropometric assessment was conducted on a sample of 309 children, aged twelve years and below, from an urban squatter community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The community consists mainly of Malays and Indians and is fairly established with a mean length of residence of about fifteen years. There was not much difference between the two ethnic groups with regard to educational status or income. Most of the residents were unskilled or semiskilled workers employed in factories and government agencies. About 40 percent of the infants and toddlers were found to be wasted, while about one-third of the older children were stunted. There appears to be some association between income per capita and nutritional status.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
  18. The ideal measurement of the quality of life in post stroke patients: an urban study
    Samsiah M, Das S, Chee SY, Rashidah R, Siti H, Ruth P, et al.
    Clin Ter, 2011;162(3):209-15.
    PMID: 21717044
    There is paucity of literature on the measurement of the quality of life in post stroke patients in the developing countries. The main objective of this study was to determine the quality of life (QOL) of post stroke patients.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  19. The health status and health needs of Chinese population in Glasgow
    Liao XH, McIlwaine G
    Scott Med J, 1995 Jun;40(3):77-80.
    PMID: 7569869
    This cross sectional study explored the health problems and health needs in the local Chinese community in Glasgow. Several data collection methods have been used in this study, including face-to-face and telephone structured interviews, postal and hand delivered questionnaires. A total of 800 questionnaires were processed, and 493 were completed, giving an overall response rate 61.6%. The results from the present survey indicated that the health status of Chinese residents in Glasgow is poorer than that of the local population. The most important findings of the study is that the Chinese community in Glasgow underuse health services, and unmet health needs exist in the community. The main barrier to effective use of present health services and benefit from the health promotion and health education programmes is language difficulties. Following discussion with the local community, options for improving the health services for the Chinese community in Glasgow were obtained. The findings of the study have implications for health service purchaser/providers of health care to the Chinese population generally in Scotland.
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health
  20. Fulltext The Tsinghua-Lancet Commission on Healthy Cities in China: unlocking the power of cities for a healthy China
    Yang J, Siri JG, Remais JV, Cheng Q, Zhang H, Chan KKY, et al.
    Lancet, 2018 05 26;391(10135):2140-2184.
    PMID: 29678340 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30486-0
    Matched MeSH terms: Urban Health*
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