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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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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A psychology and power intervention to help decision-makers prioritise health in ­­­urban development

July 13, 2025

Evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the built environment has an impact on people’s health, particularly in terms of noncommunicable diseases such as asthma, diabetes and poor mental health. However, health is rarely prioritised in urban planning decisions at present, and earlier work by this research group has shown that senior decision-makers feel they lack the power to influence planning and policy decisions in order to improve the situation. This intervention area adds to the wider research programme, which is focused primarily on the delivery of quantifiable socio-environmental and health economics valuations. People make decisions not just based on economic valuation, so an understanding of why people make decisions and how those decisions can change is essential. This paper describes the methodology that will be used to develop this intervention. Findings will be published later.

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Collaboration for healthier urban development

July 13, 2025

Health evidence could be used more effectively to influence healthier urban development. We learn from a researcher-practitioner collaboration, involving an embedded researcher in local government working on a regeneration project, which helped to develop a new health modelling tool for environmental change and influence decision-making.

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