健康無國界、城市要健康

Health Without Borders: Creating Healthy Cities

在全世界各地，特別是亞洲地區，正歷經快速都市化的趨勢。世界衛生組織（World Health Organization, WHO）早在1986年即開始推動健康城市的計畫，希望及早擴展影響世界各國家城市的發展，其原因主要是人口過度的集中於都市，衍生出各種環境汙染、交通擁擠、治安犯罪、與基礎設施的不足，嚴重影響民眾的身體健康與生活品質。這些問題已超越各地政府原先既定計畫的範圍，並非單一個案，而是成為全球共同性的議題。一般的城市與社區發展都需要更多規劃與支持，使其能夠邁向有規劃且經營完善的都市環境，讓人們可以快樂地生活、工作與娛樂。因此，台灣推動健康城市計畫是要營造一個健康的城市，結合醫藥衛生、都市計畫、自然環境，產業發展，交通運輸，文化教育等部門，逐步建立一個永續性健康的社會，在這個健康的環境下，才能發展出一群健康的人群。因此，筆者推動健康城市計畫就是希望建構一個「健康無國界、城市要健康」的願景。 Urbanization, a rapidly rising trend worldwide, is being felt particularly strongly in East Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a healthy-cities plan in 1986 as a platform to encourage cities around the world to eliminate the problems resulting from increasingly dense urban population densities. The health and quality of life of city residents are seriously affected by the problems associated with urbanization, including environmental pollution, traffic congestion, public insecurity, and inadequate infrastructure, which may exceed the scope of local government plans and expectations. Rather than dealing with these problems individually, urban planners must take a global approach to issue of urbanization. Public and private-sector inputs are critical to facilitating good urban planning and community development by local governments in order to help cities achieve a well-managed urban environment that gives citizens a good environment in which to live, work, and play. The promotion healthy-city plans in Taiwan will foster the creation of cities of health through the integration or cooperation of government health, urban-planning, environmental-protection, industrialdevelopment, transportation, cultural-education, and other departments and agencies. Based on the vision of a healthy city, Taiwan's cities should gradually attain a sustainable, healthy society and healthy environment that promotes the holistic health of their residents. Therefore, we look forward to fulfilling the vision of “health without borders, creating healthy cities” through the implementation of the healthy city plan.