Urban Health. Partecipatory action-research models contrasting socioeconomics inequalities in the urban context

This book describes and examines, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, the relationships between the constructed environment, health and social vulnerability. It demonstrates that spatial disintegration is quite often intertwined with health and social inequalities; therefore, it is crucial to adopt a methodology of multidisciplinary approach to urban health, in order to investigate the inequalities in healthcare and medical assistance through the analysis of psycho-social– environmental processes and the impact that these aspects can produce on objective and perceived health. The territorial insecurity is a local translation of complex phenomena regarding social ‘mobility’ (migration, economic crisis and development, restructuring of physical environments, increase in population), a clear reflection of the concept of urban divides where intra-metropolitan duality produces areas that have high levels of quality of life and areas characterized by poverty and spatial segregation. The first are the urban territories that, due to their characteristics, are capable of intercepting the opportunities of the global market; the latter are less attractive areas for investments, trade and tourism that consequently find themselves on the outskirts of society.