Introduction

Urban health is believable to be a considerable challenge of the twenty-first century (Leeuw in Global Change and Human Health 2:34–45 [11]). The population booms in most countries after the Second World War accelerated the progress of urbanization, after which the relationship between urbanization and health have gradually become apparent in the academic literature (Leeuw in Global Change and Human Health 2:34–45 [11]). The importance of health for urban development has been increasingly recognized, in particular with the revision of globally sustainable development goals, which propose that the equity, inclusiveness and accountability in health and development are the core principles and themes of sustainable development (WHO, Global report on urban health: Equitable, healthier cities for sustainable development, 2016). Being seen as both a key determinant and a resource, health is increasingly highlighted as a central component of sustainable development (Corvalán et al. in Epidemiology 10:656 [9]; Goodland in Annu Rev Ecol Syst 26:1–24 [21]; Schirnding in The Lancet 360:632–637 [36]). To capture the benefits of health for sustainable development, a considerable body of knowledge has been generated in various fields focusing on the health effects of urbanization, such as environmental health, infectious disease public health, and lifestyle-related behavioral health (Leeuw in Global Change and Human Health 2:34–45 [11]). Specifically, urbanization and the resulting changes towards sedentary lifestyles lead to a remarkable transformation in the problematization of health, shifting from infectious to chronic disease etiology (Sarkar et al. in Healthy Cities: Public Health through Urban Planning. Edward Elgar Publishing [35]). However, the causation or correlation between health and urbanization have not been explained by the unequivocal and empirically validated theories, particularly it is difficult to ascertain the causal relations within specific local contexts (Leeuw in Global Change and Human Health 2:34–45 [11]; Galea and Vlahov in Annu Rev Public Health 26:341–365 [19]; Srinivasan et al. in Am J Public Health 93:1446–1450 [37]). In response to these constrains, an integrated, multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral approach for urban health research is necessary, one that integrates urban planning, social psychology, epidemiology, public health and environmental sciences (Hollander and Staatsen in Landsc Urban Plan 65:53–62 [10]).