This module provides interdisciplinary and critical perspectives on relationships between urban processes and health disparities in cities across the world. It explores how urban processes produce uneven health outcomes across different populations, and how the social, economic, political and environmental determinants of health play out spatially at the city level. Finally, it examines the formal and informal mechanisms and institutions that govern mental and physical health; and considers how health disparities might be addressed.

Health, Social Justice and the City (DEVP0042 PART I)


This module introduces key approaches, theories and ideas for the study of urban health with an...

Health, Social Justice and the City 1 (DEVP0042)

Health, Social Justice and the City (DEVP0042 PART I)


This module introduces key approaches, theories and ideas for the study of urban health with an emphasis on the Global South emerging scholarship. The module will focus on the links between planning and health equity as well as on social justice and health disparities, producing an integrative, interdisciplinary and critical perspective of the interrelationships between urban processes and health disparities, examining both clinical and spatial dimensions of health such as infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, chronic diseases, social injustice and violence in cities. The main questions to be discussed in this module are: How (and why) does the urban (as both political and spatial entity) (re)produce health disparities; What are the epistemological and ideological foundations that shape intervention strategies in order to create strategic transformation in the field of urban health; And what is the role of planners, architects and development experts in promoting health justice? The module combines lectures, seminar discussions, one day field-trip, group activities, invited speakers and student presentations.


On completion of the module, participants will have:


· An in-depth understanding of the interrelationships between urban processes and health justice and their relation to infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases and violence
· An in-depth knowledge of key concepts about how health disparities are shaped by urban processes, both in cities in general and in the Global South in particular
· Knowledge of the impacts of different development planning initiatives on urban justice and wellbeing in different regions.