Health and the African City: Nairobi and Its Settlements

Health and the African City

Nairobi and Its Settlements

Drawing on 15 years of research by APHRC and on ongoing work on a Lancet Series on Slum Health, this paper/presentation by Dr. Alex Ezeh will highlight key trends in slum health and offer opportunities for innovations in addressing poor health outcomes among slum dwellers. Despite global commitment to improve the lives of slum dwellers under the MDG, close to 15 percent of the world population and nearly a third of all urban residents globally still live in slums or slum-like conditions. In sub-Saharan Africa, this proportion exceeds 60 percent of all urban dwellers in the region. While the implications of slum residence on health may be evident across space and time, the nature and magnitude of this effect differs across slums even within the same urban context.  These differences within and across urban contexts and countries, especially in the sub-Saharan African context, are often rooted in the history of urban growth and development. Where evidence exists, slum dwellers have been shown to experience much poorer health outcomes than non-slum residents, and in some contexts, than rural residents. The drivers of poor health outcomes among slum residents are complex.

This event is part of the series “The Future of the African City,” co-sponsored by the Forum for Scholars and Publics and the Duke Africa Initiative and organized by Professors John Bartlett, Charlie Piot, and Karin Shapiro. The African City Working Group is supported by the FHI Mellon Humanities Futures initiative.