Seminar Series 2: Lecture 5 - Dr Howard Frumkin
Urban vision and public health: designing and building wholesome places
In searching for the link between urban planning and health Dr Frumkin began by asking what some of the major health challenges of our time are and alluded to the great infrastructural responses such as clean water supply to the infectious disease challenges of a hundred years ago. The list he offered, and suggested was partial, included:
- the complex of sedentary lifestyles, overweight and obesity and associated diseases.
- accidental injury, the leading cause of death in those under the age of 35.
- cardiovascular disease (CVD) for which most adult Americans now have one risk factor and multiple risk factors are very common. One million Americans die of CVD each year (about 40% of all deaths there) and 70 million Americans have symptoms.
- asthma, which is increasing in prevalence and, like the other health challenges mentioned above, varies according to income and ethnic status.
About the speaker
Howard Frumkin MD, DrPH, Director, National Center for Environmental Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Frumkin is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist and epidemiologist. His research interests include public health aspects of the built environment, climate change, energy policy and nature contact.
He is the author, co-author or editor of over 300 scientific journal articles, chapters and books, including textbooks on general environmental health.
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