Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities

The Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities project is an international consortium of researchers working in partnership with local policy makers to advance sustainable urban development that supports healthier lives for all. With collaborators from leading universities in Ghana, US, Canada, UK, Bangladesh, and China, coordinated by Imperial College London, this multi-investigator, multi-country study aims to understand how actions related to urban services such as water, sanitation, housing, and transportation affect health and health inequalities in cities.

Raphael Arku, assistant professor in Environmental Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, is taking the lead on the Ghana component of this multi-investigator, multi-country project, which largely focuses on measuring and monitoring environmental pollution, including air and noise in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. Arku and his support team are conducting air and noise measurement in over 160 locations across the geographical extent of what is considered one of the fasted growing metropolises in sub-Saharan Africa. The data from this work will provide details pollution data at a high spatial resolution to support local and national policy scenarios aimed at improving quality of life for urban residents.