Urbanisation and health in China.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Gong P
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3733467 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Urbanisation and health in China.
Gong Peng P Liang Song S Carlton Elizabeth J EJ Jiang Qingwu Q Wu Jianyong J Wang Lei L Remais Justin V JV
Lancet (London, England) 20120301 9818
China has seen the largest human migration in history, and the country's rapid urbanisation has important consequences for public health. A provincial analysis of its urbanisation trends shows shifting and accelerating rural-to-urban migration across the country and accompanying rapid increases in city size and population. The growing disease burden in urban areas attributable to nutrition and lifestyle choices is a major public health challenge, as are troubling disparities in health-care acces ...[more]
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Project description:ObjectivesThis study investigated the association between urbanisation and self-rated health of older adults in China, particularly how different dimensions, rate and level of urbanisation are related to older people's health. Additionally, it examined the moderating effect of education on the association between each of the four dimensions of urbanisation and older people's health.DesignThe study uses a cross-sectional survey design.ParticipantsThis study analysed 236 030 individuals (aged 60-79 years) nested within 267 prefecture-level cities from 2005 China's 1% population sample survey.Outcome measuresSelf-rated health was the outcome variable. Four groups of predictors assessed prefectures' level and rate of urbanisation: land-use conversion, economic growth, population concentration and health services. Multilevel logistic regression was used to examine the association between self-rated health and the level and rate of urbanisation, after adjusting for individual-level covariates. Multiplicative interactions explored variations by education.ResultsThe odd of reporting fair or poor health was negatively associated with the level and rate of population concentration (OR 0.93,95%CI 0.87 to 0.99 and 0.74,95%CI 0.59 to 0.93, respectively) and positively associated with the level of health services (OR 1.12, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.19). Land-use conversion, economic growth and health service improvements (the forms of rate of urbanisation) were not significantly associated with self-rated health. Education had a moderating effect on the association between urbanisation and self-rated health.ConclusionsOlder people living in more densely populated areas and areas undergoing rapid population concentration were less likely to report fair or poor health. This result supports healthy migration and 'salmon bias' hypotheses. No urban health penalty was observed for the older adults in China; therefore, the following pathways linking urbanisation to health are unclear: lifestyle changes, environmental pollution and cultivated land reduction.
| S-EPMC6597632 | biostudies-literature
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| S-EPMC10556117 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundLittle attention has been paid to how the association between urbanisation and abdominal adiposity changes over the course of economic development in low-income and middle-income countries.MethodsData came from the China Health and Nutrition Survey waves 1993-2011 (seven waves). A mixed linear model was used to investigate the association between community-level urbanisation with waist-to-height ratio (WHtR; an indicator of abdominal adiposity). We incorporated interaction terms between urbanisation and study waves to understand how the association changed over time. The analyses were stratified by age (children vs adults).ResultsAdult WHtR was positively associated with urbanisation in earlier waves but became inversely associated over time. More specifically, a 1 SD increase in the urbanisation index was associated with higher WHtR by 0.002 and 0.005 in waves 1993 and 1997, while it was associated with lower WHtR by 0.001 in 2011. Among child participants, the increase in WHtR over time was predominantly observed in more urbanised communities.ConclusionOur study suggests a shift in adult abdominal adiposity from more urbanised communities to less urbanised communities over a time of rapid economic development in China. Children living in more urbanised communities had higher increase in abdominal obesity with urbanisation over time relative to children living in less urbanised communities.
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Project description:Urbanisation is considered as one of the most critical and widespread threats to coastal marine ecosystems. The aim of this study was to compare the density, percentage cover, thickness of clumps, condition index and size-frequency distribution of Mytilus galloprovincialis between urban and non-urban shores, at nested spatial scales, in the Northern Portuguese coast. M. galloprovincialis was selected as model because it is economically and ecologically relevant. Moreover, the relationship between mussel size and the other variables (i.e. density, percentage cover, thickness and condition index) were investigated. Mussels on urban shores showed a smaller density and a greater frequency of larger individuals. A significant negative correlation between mussel length with density and with thickness of clumps was also found. Our results seem to indicate that recruitment has declined on urban shores and, as a result, intraspecific competition is also smaller, leading to more resources being available for a fewer individuals which can reach larger sizes. As mussel beds support a great biodiversity of invertebrates and provide many ecosystem services, urbanisation may have indirect effects on communities associated with mussels. Understanding the vulnerability of mussel beds to urbanisation could inform management.
| S-EPMC7209287 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundHabitat loss is one of the principal causes of the current pollinator decline. With agricultural intensification, increasing urbanisation is among the main drivers of habitat loss. Consequently studies focusing on pollinator community structure along urbanisation gradients have increased in recent years. However, few studies have investigated how urbanisation affects plant-pollinator interaction networks. Here we assessed modifications of plant-pollinator interactions along an urbanisation gradient based on the study of their morphological relationships.Methodology/principal findingsAlong an urbanisation gradient comprising four types of landscape contexts (semi-natural, agricultural, suburban, urban), we set up experimental plant communities containing two plant functional groups differing in their morphological traits ("open flowers" and "tubular flowers"). Insect visitations on these communities were recorded to build plant-pollinator networks. A total of 17 857 interactions were recorded between experimental plant communities and flower-visitors. The number of interactions performed by flower-visitors was significantly lower in urban landscape context than in semi-natural and agricultural ones. In particular, insects such as Syrphidae and solitary bees that mostly visited the open flower functional group were significantly impacted by urbanisation, which was not the case for bumblebees. Urbanisation also impacted the generalism of flower-visitors and we detected higher interaction evenness in urban landscape context than in agricultural and suburban ones. Finally, in urban context, these modifications lowered the potential reproductive success of the open flowers functional group.Conclusions/significanceOur findings show that open flower plant species and their specific flower-visitors are especially sensitive to increasing urbanisation. These results provide new clues to improve conservation measures within urbanised areas in favour of specialist flower-visitors. To complete this functional approach, studies using networks resolved to the species level along urbanised gradients would be required.
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