The Built Environment and Public Health in India : Opportunities, Challenges and Future Pathways

This volume deals with the determinants of both good and bad health, at individual as well as community levels, or in a broader sense, all of which are determined by multiple, critically interlinked actors that are surprisingly concentrated within the built environment. It analyzes the critical challenges in contemporary Indian cities — rapid urbanization accompanied by challenges from climate change, abnormal weather, urban flooding, and many other extreme events.

 This work is a timely effort that encompasses the prospects and constraints of public health when India is rapidly urbanizing, which puts severe strains on pre-existing urban health infrastructure and services to meet basic human needs, along with significant shrinkage of open, green spaces. It is also relevant when India is recovering from the nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was largely an urban health hazard, and the Indian urban health system needs substantial renewal.

 The book sheds light on those Indian cities, surprisingly two-thirds of the total numbers, that lack local area plans, zonal plans, and master plans. This absence affects a significant proportion of the urban population that is outside the planned neighborhoods, with unplanned, and in most cases inadequate, health infrastructure and services.

 This volume takes  into account the typical health behavior in the built environment due to the increasing likelihood of a sedentary lifestyle that leads to anxiety, cardiovascular diseases, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, asthma, and many other similar signs of poor health associated with this lifestyle.

 The book serves to explore the linkages between the isolated notions of green spaces, smart cities, physical activities, mental health, and other beneficial elements. Amid the urban–industrial framework, these factors could be effective in resolving the critical public health crisis in transformative built environments and cityscapes through the synthesis of cross-disciplinary knowledge.

Vidya Yadav is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, College of Commerce, Arts & Science, Patna, Bihar. She is a trained Geographer and a Demographer dedicated to impactful research on Built Environment and Health, Urban Planning and healthy housing and Public health. She completed her Masters in Applied Geography from Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. She was a Gold medalist in her Masters. Further, she has done Master’s in Population Studies and earned her Ph.D. from the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India. Her Ph.D. Work mainly focuses on the Built environment, Social Capital and its impact on Health. Her research employs mixed methods, including household surveys, quantitative and qualitative analysis, to measure and understand policy gaps. Her work has been published in various peer-reviewed international scientific journals and has garnered significant media coverage. She has published 15 research papers as well as attended many national and international conferences. She served as the reviewer of several reputed journals published by Springer Nature. She is a subject expert for the preparation of uniform syllabus for 4-year Undergraduate courses of Bachelor of Arts under CBCS system as per UGC regulation. She is also a recipient of various international awards like Deutscher AkademischerAustauschdienst (DAAD) German Academic Exchange Service, to participate as a research scientist in the Indo German Centre for Sustainability (IGCS) at Aachen University, Germany. Recently, she has completed a Major Research Project funded by ICSSR, New Delhi.

Mukunda Mishra is an Associate Professor, in the Department of Geography, and designated Vice Principal of Dr.Meghnad Saha College in West Bengal, India. Dr. Mishra completed his postgraduate studies in Geography and Environmental Management at Vidyasagar University (receiving top rank in both the B.Sc. and M.Sc. panels of merit) and held a Ph.D. in Geography from the same University. He was selected for the prestigious National Merit Scholarship by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. His doctoral research chiefly focuses on analyzing unequal human development, regional planning, and multi-criteria predictive model building. He has more than fifteen years of hands-on experience in dealing with development issues at the ground level in various districts of eastern India. Presently his publications deal with critical commentary on the policies for inclusivity, peace, and sustainability in the Global South. Dr. Mishra has in his credit to publish one monograph and ten edited research volumes so far from the house of Springer-Nature. Dr. Mishra has thirty-five research articles and book chapters published in journals and books of international repute. Besides serving as the reviewer of several reputed journals published by Springer-Nature and Elsevier Inc., he has been continuing as the Managing and Publishing Editor of Ensemble, a multidisciplinary journal of repute, since its inception to date.

Kapil Kumar Gavsker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (India). He has more than ten years of teaching and research experience in the higher education system of the country. He has formerly served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Geography, School of Regional Studies and Earth Sciences, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack (Odisha, India). He holds Post Graduate degree in Geography from Dr. B.R.Ambedkar University, Agra (Uttar Pradesh) & M.Phil. and Ph.D. degree in Regional Studies from University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad (Telangana). His research interests largely lie in the field of Urban and Regional Geography, Urban Development and Planning, Urban Environment, and Heritage Studies. He has several quality research publications to his credit in various journals including Economic and Political Weekly; Annals- National Association of Geographers, India; International Journal of Research in Geography; Journal of Asian Profile; the Indian Geographical Journal; Nagarlok; International Journal of Geography and Regional Planning; AUC Geographica Journal; Sustainable Cities and Society; Discover Applied Sciences; Asian Journal of Geographical Research; and Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment. He has participated and presented research papers in several national and international conferences, workshops, seminars and webinars. He is Life Member of important professional bodies and societies such as The Geographical Society of India, Kolkata; The Institute of Indian Geographers, Pune; and The Association of Socio-Economic Development Studies, Lucknow; The National Association of Geographers, India; The Indian Geographical Society, Chennai; The National Geographical Society of India, Varanasi; and The Indian Association for the Study of Population, New Delhi.