Lodz
The city of Lodz is located in the Lodzkie region in central Poland. It has a population of over 760 000. A number of measures have been taken by the City of Lodz to address the challenges of public health and are included in the paper “Directions of actions for health of Lodz citizens” which is an overall strategy of the city integrating health into other aspects of city development. However there is a lack of mechanism of translating medical research data into city policies on a regular basis. Therefore the city is very much interested in using Health Impact Assessment on the local level in order to be able to integrate health into policies concerning all aspects of its life.
As the aging of the population is soon going to become a major problem in the city, Lodz is also exploring actions concerned with active aging.
The main challenges for Lodz include:
- Intensified action in the field of health promotion and prevention of chronic diseases
- Improvement of health care infrastructure to meet the standards required in EU countries and improve access to health services and thus promote equity in health
- Further improvement of city infrastructure – roads, public transport, wheelchair accessibility of public buildings,
- Revitalization of degraded city areas, often of historical value.
- Investment in existing cultural and sports facilities.
- Supporting community groups in order to increase community participation and build civic society
- Development of the tourist infrastructure, which may result in increased employment and consequently – improved standard of living in the city
