Guest edited by Mariam Otmani del Barrio, Frédéric Simard and Andrea Caprara
An article collection published in Infectious Diseases of Poverty.
More than half of the world’s population currently lives in urban settlements that grow both in size and number. By 2050, approximately 60% of the global population will be living in urban conglomerations, mainly in low-and middle-income countries. Mobility, poverty, inequality and climate variability and change are some of the social and environmental factors that influence the exposure of human populations in urban settings to vector-borne diseases (VBDs) such as dengue, Chikungunya and Zika virus diseases, urban malaria, leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis, apart from water-borne diseases. These pose eminent public health challenges with emerging and re-emerging infections, particularly in the era of globalization, requiring strengthened intersectoral policy and action at the urban level.
Accurate, consistent, and evidence-based interventions for VBD and other infectious diseases of poverty prevention and control in urban settings are needed to implement cost-effective public policy and to promote inclusive and equitable urban health services.
The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) hosted at the World Health Organization brought together global experts through the VERDAS Research Consortium to generate evidence on urban health interventions that address social and environmental determinants of health, and to conduct a research gap analysis, including a series of scoping reviews and a workshop to identify research priorities regarding urban health interventions for the prevention and control of vector-borne and other infectious diseases of poverty. This thematic series draws together the resulting scoping reviews and the ideas presented at the workshop and helps focus attention on the research gaps and policy implications that need to be filled in order to address VBDs at the urban level.