Positive and Negative Impact of Urbanization in Health

 Urbanization is a migration of people from rural to the urban area with the purpose of job, education and opportunities as well as to upgrade the socioeconomic status. It is a symbol of development because people get more job and earns money which leads to growth and development of Nation. It was started in 19th century from the Great Britain and some European countries during the period of industrial revolution. UN 2007 data suggests that the half of the world population has been living in urban  areas ;however, this  proportion is growing simultaneously. Now a days, urbanization has greatly impact in low and middle income countries, particularly in Asia and Africa. Likewise, Nepal has also affected by rapid growth of urbanization.

Urbanization has both positive and negative aspects. Regarding the positive aspects, People gets a lot of job and opportunities which helps to fulfill their own basic needs. Likewise, health facilities are more available in urban area than rural. The living condition, housing status and education status of urban is far better than rural. These factors has plays crucial role to upgrade the health status of people. The study reveals that the child mortality rate is lower whereas life expectancy is higher in urban area than rural. This indicates the urbanization is the symbol of socioeconomic development of country. Beside this, there are existing lot of negative aspect that includes high population density, air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, overcrowding, high number of slums area etc. Furthermore, rapid or uncontrolled growth of the urban population reflects severe consequences in health. In developing countries like Nepal, mega cities and small cities are very heterogeneous with large slums areas which gives potential risk and challenge in environment and health.

The emerging infectious vector borne disease and water borne disease is a serious threat public health. Rapid urbanization and rapid growth of population in the cities plays the major role for emerging public health issue. In Nepal, population census of 1951 and  2011  shows that urban population is 2.9% (0.023 million ) and 17% (4.5million) respectively leading to 14.1 percent increases during this course of time. Moreover, in 2019  the degree of urbanization is 20.15%. Similarly, study conducted in Kathmandu (2020) shows that urban population is increased by almost 500 folds over the past five decades. It further conclude that the health of the people living in urban areas has majorly affected by air pollution, water pollution and poor sanitation. 

The rise of the non- communicable disease is due to enormous change in social, economic and behavior pattern, of which urbanization is one dimension. The prevalence of obesity, overweight, hypertension and cardiovascular disease is higher in urban than rural area.

 At last, Sustainable growth of the urban  areas is most important and challenge in recent days. The balance growth of cities is needed which helps to upgrade social and economic development of the Nation.