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DPU co-led interdisciplinary research project receives UCL Science Plus Grant

8 October 2021

Congratulations to the DPU's Prof. Haim Yacobi who will co-lead the successful proposal titled “Overcoming Syndemic Urbanism: Health, Vulnerability and Communities’ Resilience”.

Flood Bangladesh

Prof. Haim Yacobi, Programme Leader of the MSc Health in Urban Development, received the grant alongside Prof Ed Fottrell (Epidemiology & Global Health) and Dr Misheck Julian Nkhata, (Institute of Advanced Studies) for the proposed project. The research will be a new interdisciplinary collaboration between a social scientist specialising in urban studies (Yacobi), an epidemiologist (Fottrell) and a medical anthropologist (Nkhata).

The project aims to conceptually develop the notion of Syndemic Urbanism as both theoretical and methodological lenses through which urban health and interventions should be understood. Syndemic urbanism focuses on how urban-spatial elements influence the accumulation of several health conditions and how these are experienced in an urban context.  

The research is planned as a pilot in Faridpur, a major city located in the Faridpur District, Bangladesh with local partners investigating how urban-spatial elements affect syndemic urbanism, and how might they be used as a vehicle for informing interventions leading to urban health justice. This project will also refer to the ways in which communities (local) knowledge, participation and leadership can contribute to the improvement of urban health.