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Urban Environments and Public Health: Policies, Planning Strategies, and Advanced Technologies

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 March 2023) | Viewed by 5823

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Bo Qin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Urban Planning and Management, School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing100872, China
Interests: urban built environment; healthy city; aging friendly city; urban sustainable development
Dr. Jiejing Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Urban Planning and Management, School of Public Administration and Policy, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Interests: urbanization; urban development; population migration and mobility; mental health

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Health effects induced by urban environments have gained increasing interest in recent years. Factors including population characteristics, natural and built environments, and social and economic development are considered to be important for the health of urban residents. With urbanization and urban sprawl, there are increased health risks for city residents, such as air pollution, poor urban sanitation, poor housing conditions, green space scarcity, traffic congestion, long commuting, and crime, especially for marginalized groups in urban society. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought challenges to people’s physical and mental health by bringing changes to lifestyles, daily behaviors, and social isolation. As such, comprehensive studies need to investigate how policies, planning strategies, and advanced technologies can change urban environments and health outcomes. In this Special Issue, we welcome research that focuses on, but is not limited to, the following lines of inquiry: 

  • Studies using novel approaches and/or newly emerging data to examine the health effects of urban environments.
  • Studies examining the relationships between urban lifestyles and people’s health, especially those that focus on physical and social activities, daily behaviors, and health outcomes.
  • Public policies, urban planning strategies, and advanced technologies in promoting the health of urban residents, especially the health of marginalized populations.
  • Research on effects of COVID-19 on people’s physical and mental health.
  • Sustainable social and economic development of cities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof. Dr. Bo Qin
Dr. Jiejing Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban environments
  • physical health
  • mental health
  • sustainable development
  • COVID-19
  • policies
  • new technology
  • urban planning
  • marginalization
  • age-friendly cities
  • resilience

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2120 KiB  
Article
The Recovery of China’s Industrial Parks in the First Wave of COVID-19
by Changcheng Kan, Qiwei Ma, Zhaoya Gong, Yuanjing Qi and Anrong Dang
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(22), 15035; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215035 - 15 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1641
Abstract
Industrial parks are functional urban areas that carry the capacity to support highly concentrated production activities. The robustness and anti-interference ability of these areas are of great importance to maintaining economic vitality of a country. Focusing on the rate of production recovery (RPR), [...] Read more.
Industrial parks are functional urban areas that carry the capacity to support highly concentrated production activities. The robustness and anti-interference ability of these areas are of great importance to maintaining economic vitality of a country. Focusing on the rate of production recovery (RPR), this paper examines the recovery of 436 major industrial parks in mainland China during the first wave of COVID-19. Leveraging spatio-temporal big data, we measured 14 attributes pertaining to industrial parks, covering four categories, namely spatial location, central city, park development, and public service. We focused on the spatial association and heterogeneity of the recovery patterns and identified the factors that truly affected the recovery of industrial parks with quantitative evaluation of their effects. The results reveal that: (1) RPR of industrial parks are significantly spatially clustered, with an obvious “cold spot” in the early outbreak area of Hubei Province and a prominent “center-periphery” pattern in developed areas, which is highly correlated with the spread of the epidemic. (2) The mechanisms driving the resumption of industrial parks are complex and versatile. All four categories in the variable matrix are related to RPR, including up to eight effective influencing factors. The effect of influencing factors is spatially heterogeneous, and its intensity varies significantly across regions. What is more interesting is that some impact factors show positive effects in some industrial parks while inhibiting the recovery in others. On the basis of the discussion of those findings with practical experiences, the planning and construction strategies of industrial park are suggested to mitigate the impact of similar external shocks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Environments and Public Health: Policies, Planning Strategies, and Advanced Technologies)
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19 pages, 4798 KiB  
Article
The Changing Landscape of Food Deserts and Swamps over More than a Decade in Flanders, Belgium
by Vincent Smets, Jeroen Cant and Stefanie Vandevijvere
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(21), 13854; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192113854 - 25 Oct 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3747
Abstract
Food deserts and swamps have previously been mostly studied in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the USA and Great Britain. This research is one of the first studies to map food deserts and swamps in a mainland European, densely populated but heavily fragmented region [...] Read more.
Food deserts and swamps have previously been mostly studied in Anglo-Saxon countries such as the USA and Great Britain. This research is one of the first studies to map food deserts and swamps in a mainland European, densely populated but heavily fragmented region such as Flanders. The evolution of food deserts and swamps between 2008 and 2020 was assessed. Special focus was given to areas where high numbers of elderly, young people and/or families with low income live. Food deserts were calculated based on supermarket access within 1000 m and bus stop availability, while food swamps were calculated using the Modified Food Environment Retail Index. The main cause behind the formation of food deserts in Flanders is its rapidly aging population. Food deserts with a higher number of older people increased from 2.5% to 3.1% of the residential area between 2008 and 2020, housing 2.2% and 2.8% of the population, respectively. Although the area that could become a food desert in the future due to these sociospatial and demographic evolutions is large, food deserts are currently a relatively small problem in Flanders in comparison to the widespread existence of food swamps. Unhealthy retailers outnumbered healthy retailers in 74% of residential areas in 2020, housing 88.2% of the population. These food swamps create an environment where unhealthy food choices predominate. Residential areas with a higher number of elderly people, young people and families with low incomes had healthier food environments than Flanders as a whole, because these areas are mostly found in dense urban centers where the ratio of healthy food retailers to all retailers is higher. This research showed that food deserts and swamps could be a growing problem in European regions with a high population density that experience the high pressures of competing land uses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Environments and Public Health: Policies, Planning Strategies, and Advanced Technologies)
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