Urban planners and health practitioners must work in tandem: Dr Sushil

Jammu,1 March: Recognising the fact that the health can be improved by proper planning of the urban environment, Dr. Sushil Sharma conducted day long health awareness cum check up camp in the precincts of Sarv Shakti Chandi Mata Temple, Pacca Danga, Jammu in order to mark the celebration of 24th annual foundation day. He underlined that the growing body of literature has demonstrated that urban design attributes are associated with a range of health outcomes. For example, the location of employment, shops and services, provision of public and active transport infrastructure and access to open space and recreational opportunities are associated with chronic disease risk factors such as physical activity levels, access to healthy food, social connectedness, and air quality. Despite the growing knowledge base, this evidence is not being consistently translated into urban planning policy and practice in our cities. Health promotion practitioners and researchers need to more closely engage with urban planning practitioners, policymakers and researchers to encourage the creation of healthy urban environments through integrated transport, land use and infrastructure planning.

He informed that globally, the majority of people already live in cities and by 2050, it is estimated that 75% of 10 billion people have cities as an important social determinant of health. Air pollution, physical inactivity, noise, social isolation and unhealthy diets play a very important part in the non-communicable disease burden. However, today, many of India’s cities are still not yet on a sustainable pathway. Major cities are growing out. Spread-out cities lead to longer trips that consume more energy, waste time, and pollute the air. Longer travel times and more cars on roads often lead to more traffic accidents and deaths. These problems are not new to Jammu city, and time and again it has been observed that poor urban planning has not only marred effective accessibility but also introduces various pollutants in human and natural subsystems. There is a need to explore how integrated multisector city planning, including urban design and transport planning, can be used as an important factor for health and wellbeing within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals in urban pockets of our cities, he added.

Management committee of the temple Dr. D.S. Jamwal, Sanjay Gandotra, Jai Dev Singh, Jia Lal, Vikas Dogra, Narinder Sharma and others expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Sushil and his team in organising medical camp on the occasion of annual congregation, and sensitise the people on such important theme.

More than 600 patients were examined, evaluated and advised during the camp. ECG, Blood Sugar, Lipid Profiling was conducted and medicines were also given as per the requirements.

Others who were part of this campaign include Dr S.K. Bali (Nephrologist), Dr. Shahbaz Khan, Dr. Dhaneshwer Kapoor and Dr. Syed Raheela. Paramedics and Volunteers includes Kamal Sharma, Mohd Altaf , Gourav Heera, Raghav Rajput, Vikas Kumar, Anmol Singh, Maninder Singh, Lovely Kumar, Rohit Khajuria, Sushil Jamwal, Rajesh Suri, Harvinder Singh Akshay Kumar and Rajkumar.