Bloomberg Launches Worldwide Urban Public Health Initiative
Bloomberg Philanthropies has announced a $5 million grant to launch the Partnership for Healthy Cities (PHC), an initiative focused on fighting noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries globally.
With the active participation of forty cities around the world, the initiative will work to reduce NCDs — including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory diseases — which are responsible for 67 percent of the deaths in low- and middle-income countries, as well as often-ignored killers such as motor vehicle accidents, which kill 44 million people globally each year. Because the majority of the world’s population lives in urban settings, mayors of big cities are uniquely positioned to transform the fight against NCDs and injuries by implementing evidence-based policies that reduce exposure to risk factors, improve the health of citizens, and enable cities to thrive. The adoption of such policies also will help many countries make progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal #3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all) and Goal #11 (Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable). . .