The WHO healthy city and health promoting school movement in the post-Covid era

Abstract

Medicine has advanced tremendously since post-war and rapidly from the turn of this century particularly with the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) making personalised medicine possible through more precise prediction of individual health risks and pharmaceutical advancement with more drugs available for disease management. Investment in the healthcare system has also increased substantially. However, health improvement is not proportionate to healthcare spending. We might not realise how the human activity would determine the health of population either positively or negatively. One must not forget the famous quote by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, “We can’t continue to treat people and send them back to the living and working conditions that made them sick in the first place". This chapter will illuminate why the healthcare system will not be sustainable if investment is mainly based on curative medicine neglecting the important roles of Health City and Health Promoting School as strategies to address the socio-political and economic determinants of health. This chapter will illuminate how Healthy City and Health Promoting School would facilitate primary healthcare development to improve the health of the population.