The advantages of including public health in urban planning (Tehran experience in tackling with COVID-19)

The advantages of Including Public Health in Urban Planning (Tehran experience in tackling with COVID-19) The public health and urban planning connection emerges within the common goals of preventing urban outbreaks of infections. Not attending to the public health issues in Urban Planning may cause health inequalities facing the urban poor people. With considering the land use and the built environment influence on population health it can be find out how much related these issues are. The impact of creating a healthy built environment on public health is not neglectable. A healthy urban planning process should take into the account the health and Well-Being of pepole specially poor population in accordance with Sustainable Development Goals. Including public health in Urban Planning demands a very increased attention and modifying the infrastructures. People living in poor neighborhoods often face multiple issues that influence their health such as poor schools, psychosocial stresses, unemployment, inequality, environmental exposures and specially limited access to health care centers. The 21st century has witnessed some trends like urbanization and environmental degradation that increase the risk of disease outbreaks, their spread and and amplification into epidemic and pandemics. During the Outbreak of pandemics the demand for public health infrastructures in Urban Planning is more sensible and everyone can touch it during the crisis. The approach of municipality of Tehran to public health during the recent years have been very inclusive and has developed towards making and strengthening the public health infrastructures. In particular, Tehran could take advantage of including public health in Urban Planning during the Outbreak of COVID-19 in several aspects. Health directorate general of Tehran Municipality manages health centres in all 22 districts of Tehran that deliver health care services to all citizens. Benefiting from all its capacities and infrastructures for public health, from the very first hours of the official announcement of the outbreak, Tehran Municipality began its round the clock efforts by screening numerous and broad cultural and health plans inspired by the World Health Organization reports by Tehran Municipality Health Directorate General. These efforts centered on teaching citizens how to take care of themselves and how to maximize citizens' participation in cutting the Corona virus transmission ring. The environmental screenings also took place and Municipality of Tehran Mitigated all its power to fight against the outbreak of COVID-19. Knowing its capacities the first measure taken by Municipality was organizing Work Groups in different fields but for the same goals to combat the pandemic. The work groups are as follows: -Information Work Group -Environmental Health and Waste Disposal Work Group -Education, Culture Building and Public Participation Work Group -Supply and Distribution of Foodstuffs Work Group -Budget, Logistics and Human Resources Work Group -Tehran City Crisis Prevention and Management Organization Work Group. Alll aforementioned sections benefit from a public health agenda in their structure. The results show that how investment on including public health in urban planning will lead to significant achievements when facing with outbreak of diseases and infections and how it can improve global health during pandemics. During this session Tehran officials are going to present Tehran infrastructures in public health and urban planning and clarify how the connection of these two areas could help Tehran during the Outbreak of COVID-19.