Contributing factors and indicators of climate resilient and healthy cities

September 24, 2025

Through a literature review, we summarize key contributing factors of healthy, climate resilient urban environments and how these have been measured. Our study adopts a holistic approach to explore how health and climate change co-benefits could be monitored and achieved in cities. We identify indicators that have been used to measure how policies and built environments support healthy, climate resilient cities. This provides valuable insights for planning, prioritization and monitoring of cities internationally.

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Co-designing healthy and sustainable cities: what Paris residents teach us about urban environmental health

September 24, 2025

This study introduces a place-based model of urban environmental health drawn from residents’ perspectives.
• Highlights eight interconnected local parameters of environmental health.
• Demonstrates that residents link environmental health to everyday nuisances like noise, air pollution, and lack of safety.
• Shows that viable and livable environments depend on inclusive governance and infrastructure decisions.
• Offers a replicable approach for other cities to assess urban health from the ground up.

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How migration and climate crisis impact the health of migrant populations in Santiago, Chile

September 13, 2025

Using a qualitative approach, we examined health vulnerabilities and community strategies in response to climate crisis conditions, involving 22 residents from the Toma Nuevo Amanecer informal settlement. Primary data was collected through ethnography, a focus group, and semi-structured in-depth interviews. This approach aimed to understand how extreme weather events, such as landslides, heatwaves, floods, fires, and air pollution, impact migrant communities and their coping strategies.

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A case study in developing a Health Impact Assessment from the eyes of a Community

September 5, 2025

Our collaboration co-created a new methodology reimagining the design, delivery, and management of the Health Impact Assessment using a community lens of the WHOs four interlinking principles: democracy, sustainable development, equity, and ethical use of evidence. We produced an assessment showing the differences between technocratic and experience-led approaches, and shared our methodology with 10 groups from around the UK in a pilot programme who conducted their own exercises locally.

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Cooler kids need greener spaces

July 15, 2025

Heat exposure and greenness influence health and learning outcomes. Satellite images show schools on the Coast have strong heat stress levels and low vegetation; schools in the Andes have the largest solar radiation. Reforming school infrastructure standards is urgently needed in Ecuador. To describe environmental conditions in nine Ecuadorian schools, we analyzed three variables: temperature, vegetation, and solar radiation derived from satellite images that we downloaded from Google Earth Engine. We compared schools across three ecoregions to see differences in range and average values.

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