Whither gender in urban health?

The past decade has witnessed the rapid expansion of the field of urban health, including the establishment of an international society of urban health and annual conference, the publication of several books and the growing popularity of a peer-reviewed journal on urban health. Relatively absent is an emphasis on the role of gender in urban health, despite scholarly and theoretical work on gender and place by feminist geographers, sociologists, public health researchers and others. This essay examines the treatment of gender within urban health and, drawing on insights from the social sciences, offers suggestions as to how urban health researchers might adopt an intersectional and gendered approach that will advance our understanding of the production of urban health for women and men.