Urban environmental health: Respiratory illness and urban factors in Kuala Lumpur City, Malaysia

With increasing urbanisation, more people are now staying in urban built environments, even though the conditions of the urban environments may not be conducive to urban residents' health. However, with the lack of health data of urban residents, very few studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between urban factors and city residents' health especially in developing countries. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to examine the rate of respiratory illness (acute respiratory infection and asthma) among residents of Kuala Lumpur City and also to investigate the relationship between the respiratory health rate and urban factors. A questionnaire was distributed to 563 households in the study area. Human health (as measured by acute respiratory infection and asthma) was found to be related to the land acreage of urban land use components, trip generated rate and other urban factors. An increase in shopping and office floor space, and trip frequencies, or decrease of green spaces were found to be related positively with the increasing rate of respiratory illness cases among people living in the Kuala Lumpur City.