Cities as Drivers for Health and Happiness: A Seminar with Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford
The Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness is excited to announce “Environments for Health and Happiness”, a year-long seminar series exploring the intricate relationships between aspects of the natural and built environments with our health, happiness, and well-being. As cities expand and climate change impacts intensify, the creation of resilient, equitable, and sustainable urban environments becomes crucial. Throughout the fall and spring semesters, we will host a diverse array of experts, including urban planners, public health professionals, policymakers, environmental and climate scientists, social justice advocates, and community leaders. Each seminar will provide a platform for these diverse voices to share cutting-edge research, practice-informed insights, and innovative solutions to promote physical, social, and mental health and foster community resilience for all. Join us as we highlight the transformative power of thoughtfully integrated natural and built environments to improve quality of life and create happier, healthier, and more resilient urban communities.
The first expert in this series was Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, a leader in urban public health and member of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Boufford’s seminar took place on October 2nd, 2024, and was titled “Cities as Drivers for Global Health and Happiness .”
The majority of the world’s population lives in cities, and this will only increase in coming years. In this sense, cities will be drivers of progress in achieving global health. Cities are proving to be an effective level of government for achieving health and health equity through changes in the built, social, economic and physical environments. What would it look like to add considerations of “happiness” to these critical areas of research, policy, and practice for urban health? As an emerging interdisciplinary area of research, practice and policy, we will draw on the work of experts and experience from all regions of the world and explore why cities are proving to be such an effective level of government to achieve results for health and health equity.
Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford is Clinical Professor of Global Health at the New York University School of Global Public Health and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. She is President Emeritus of The New York Academy of Medicine and Immediate Past President of the International Society for Urban Health (2017-9). She served as Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University from June 1997 to November 2002. Prior to that, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from November 1993 to January 1997, and as Acting Assistant Secretary from January 1997 to May 1997. While at HHS, she was the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1994–1997. She was elected to membership in the US National Academy of Medicine (formerly IOM) in 1992 and as a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2015. Dr. Boufford received her BA (Psychology) magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, and her MD, with distinction, from the University of Michigan Medical School. She is Board Certified in pediatrics.
