a Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, 451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, ON, K1H 8M5, Canada. Correspondence to Brodie Ramin (e-mail: [email protected]). Sub-Saharan Africa is the least urbanized region in the world. Only 39.1% of the region’s population lives in cities.1 However, the region’s urban population is projected to more than double to 760 million by 2030.1 The rate of urbanizat...

OBJECTIVE Diabetes increases an individual's risk of developing dementias (eg, vascular), whereas regular physical activity has been shown to lower this risk. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the relationships among cognitive function, exercise status, and type 2 diabetes (T2 DM) to determine whether physical activity participation offsets any of the increased risk of cognit...

BACKGROUND Tobacco smoking (TS) and illicit drug use (IDU) are of public health concerns especially in developing countries, including Bangladesh. This paper aims to (i) identify the determinants of TS and IDU, and (ii) examine the association of TS with IDU among young slum dwellers in Bangladesh. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Data on a total of 1,576 young slum dwellers aged 15-24 years we...

BACKGROUND Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an urgent public health priority. It is a neglected issue in women's health, especially in urban slums in Nepal and globally. This study was designed to better understand the IPV experienced by young pregnant women in urban slums of the Kathmandu Valley, as well as to identify their coping strategies, care and support seeking behaviours. Womens' vie...

This paper reports on the first randomized evaluation of the impact of introducing the standard microcredit group-based lending product in a new market. In 2005, half of 104 slums in Hyderabad, India were randomly selected for opening of a branch of a particular microfinance institution (Spandana) while the remainder were not, although other MFIs were free to enter those slums. Fifteen to 18 mo...

Poor sanitation in urban slums results in increased prevalence of diseases and pollution of the environment. Excreta, grey water and solid wastes are the major contributors to the pollution load into the slum environment and pose a risk to public health. The high rates of urbanization and population growth, poor accessibility and lack of legal status in urban slums make it difficult to improve ...

Both developed and less developed countries are becoming increasingly urbanized. The earlier industrialized countries have developed more infrastructure to support the building of healthy housing, in neighborhoods that are strongly linked to municipal and global health initiatives, but to some degree housing and neighborhood issues vary only in degree between the developing and developed worlds...

In the last few decades, urban development in Lagos Metropolis had posed great challenges resulting from increasing population growth, decay and degradation of inner city, urban sprawl including slums. Data on factors that influence the growth of slums were sourced through variables such as % no of respondents who were non-indigenes, % no of buildings whose age were above 10 years, % no of resp...

BACKGROUND Despite numerous interventions promoting optimal breastfeeding practices in Kenya, pockets of suboptimal breastfeeding practices are documented in Kenya's urban slums. This paper describes cultural and social beliefs and practices that influence breastfeeding in two urban slums in Nairobi, Kenya. METHODS Qualitative data were collected in Korogocho and Viwandani slums through 10 fo...