Tolullah Oni. DH PHOTO
Bengaluru: Health and urban infrastructure are more intertwined than most city dwellers realise, said Tolullah Oni, a public health physician, scientist, and urban epidemiologist.
Speaking to DH, she stressed the need for stronger communication and cooperation between the health and urban development sectors to reduce sickness rates in cities.
Tolullah also delivered a talk on 'Designing Hopeful Cities–Institutions of the Future for Inclusive and Sustainable Progress' at the Nobel Prize Dialogue held in Bengaluru on Monday.
The event was organised by Nobel Prize Dialogue India 2025 in partnership with Tata Trusts.
“A vast majority of factors that influence our health lie outside the healthcare sector,” she said.
“They lie in the environments where we live, where we work, where we play, and where we connect. They lie in our transport systems, our education systems, our energy infrastructure, our built environments, and our food environments. So, when we actually talk about creating health, of course, healthcare is absolutely critical. But let us be sure that the 80% of factors that are shaping population health are actually being designed to optimise health and not delete it.
“If you do not center and think about how the built environment can optimise health, just doing it well does not necessarily create health,” she elaborated.
Tolullah, who enjoyed running through Bengaluru’s green lanes, expressed dismay over the city’s shrinking green cover. She believes urban health cannot improve if the health and planning sectors work in isolation.
The main reasons, she said, are “problem blindness” and lack of data. Policymakers, she suggested, must explicitly link exposure in urban environments to health outcomes, especially when they occur at different times and places.