This book presents recent efforts and new approaches to improve our
understanding of the evolution of health and mortality in urban
environments in the long run, looking at transformation and adaptations
during the process of rapid population growth. In a world characterized
by large and rapidly evolving urban environments, the past and present
challenges cities face is one of the key topics in our society. Cities
are a world of differences and, consequently, of inequalities. At the
same time cities remain, above all, the spaces of interactions among a
variety of social groups, the places where poor, middle-class, and
wealthy people, as well as elites, have coexisted in harmony or tension.
Urban areas also form specific epidemiological environments since they
are characterized by population concentration and density, and a high
variety of social spaces from wealthy neighborhoods to slums. Inversely
and coherently, cities develop answers in terms of sanitary policies and
health infrastructures. This balance between risk and protective factors
is, however, not at all constant across time and space and is especially
endangered in periods of massive demographic growth, particularly
periods of urbanization mainly led by immigration flows that transform
both the socioeconomic and demographic composition of urban populations
and the morphological nature of urban environments. Therefore this book
is an unique contribution in which present day and past
socio-demographic and health challenges confronted by big urban
environments are combined.
