Photo: IU Newsroom
Areas of focus include: Sexually transmitted diseases, childhood obesity and "heat islands."
It‘s a tall order, but a new center at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis hopes to improve the quality of life for billions of people. The Center for Urban Health will focus on the issues that affect people living in urban environments. Center Director Gabriel Filippelli said they want to know how to help more than three billion people live in a healthy way in places with a high population.
“Cities are not these big generic metropolis. They are actually comprised of communities. We think of them sometimes as neighborhoods which have their own character , their own health impacts and their own burdens to healthy living within these communities”
Among the initial areas of focus; chronic poisoning from lead in soil; sexually transmitted diseases in inner city teenagers; the affect of urban “heat islands” on older adults, and the relationship of childhood obesity to green space availability and proximity.
