EVENTS

Abstract:

The largest cities in the wealthy nations all face an unprecedented challenge: how to meet the needs of a population that lives longer, has a declining birth rate, is generally healthier, but also increasingly beset by the rise of chronic illness. The World Cities Project (WCP) has produced two books and numerous articles based on comparisons among, and within five of the world's most dynamic cities: New York, Paris, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. These cities are centres of economic growth and finance, culture and media, sophisticated transportation systems and innovations of all kinds. They are renowned for their centres of excellence in medical care, top-ranking medical schools, institutes of bio-medical research, and public health infrastructure. Likewise, they attract some of the wealthiest, as well as the poorest populations of their nations, which forces their health care systems to confront the challenge of confronting glaring inequalities and redesigning their health care systems.

About the Speaker:

Victor G. Rodwin is Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University (NYU), and co-director (with Michael K. Gusmano) of the World Cities Project (WCP), a joint-venture of Wagner/NYU, the Hastings Centre, and the Robert N. Butler Centre on Aging, Columbia University. WCP studies population health and aging, and health care systems, among megacities worldwide. Professor Rodwin has lectured on these topics around the world, most recently at Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, Fudan University in Shanghai, Renmin University in Beijing, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, and the London School of Economics and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Professor Rodwin was awarded the Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair during the Spring semester of 2010. In 2000, he was the recipient of a three-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Investigator Award on "Megacities and Health: New York, London, Paris and Tokyo." Professor Rodwin has written and edited ten books and numerous scientific papers based on his international comparative research on the performance of health care systems and policy. He earned his Ph.D. in city and regional planning, and his MPH in public health, at the University of California, Berkeley.