Recording of the LongITools Policy Forum on urban health, held on 28th November 2023.
Hello everyone and a warm welcome to today’s long tools policy Forum navigating the urban Expo zone for policy Solutions I’m Sal from be technology in the UK and beta is a partner in the long tools project I will be your host for this session long tools is one of the nine collaborative
Research projects funded by the European research program Horizon 2020 to study the human Expo Zone our Ru is to ensure that longit Tool’s research findings are understandable and accessible to all of our stakeholders and where possible used to help to inform policym decisions throughout the project these policy Forum meetings will bring together
Stakeholders around a specific topic or challenge the aim is not only to raise awareness of our project activities but to gather stakeholders input to get to know each other and to share with one another knowledge and best practice I’m delighted to see that today we are joined by a range of international
Stakeholders with representatives from Academia intermediary organizations and public budes thank you for taking the time to join us before before to get started I’d like to run through some housekeeping with you I’m sorry I’m just having some issues with the pinging in the lobby just a second s for our future reference
This event is being recorded and transcribed the recording will be publically available after the event could all participants please remain muted until you’re invited to speak you will be able to ask our speakers questions after all the presentations are finished we will then open up the floor for a more General discussion if
You would like to ask a question please please use this chat function or use the raised hand emoji and you can also use the chat function for any comments or observations please like the questions in the chat that you wish to see answered and we can priorize those if we
Become limited on time the aim is that this is an interactive informal networking event so please do use this session to raise any questions share your experiences and knowledge and to introduce yourselves to your fellow delegates so I’m very pleased to welcome this morning speakers from both the longit tools project and other
Organizations each bringing different knowledge and insights firstly we have Professor Silvan SEL who is long tools project coordinator over to you svan thank you olola and thanks again for organizing these s know I have control so I can I can go ahead thank you very much and also welcome to
Everyone on on my behalf it’s uh it’s always a very nice pleasure and great opportunity to to be able to uh introduce or reintroduce our uh long tools project and also the EUR European human exposome Network I uh to all of you and uh it’s always a great
Opportunity also to participate and to to learn from those policy events to to try to co-create together a cleaner healthier and also potentially a more equal societies for for Europe so today I’m just going to give you a brief introduction about the European Expos human exposome Network I which one of
The goal is to understand health impact of a lifetime of environmental health so we are together nine different large scale projects which includes about 120 research groups many countries in Europe to try to understand the relationship between environmental factors environmental pollutions at large and how this impact the development of chronic conditions such
As uh cardiovascular disease asthma but also mental health and other behavioral factors in in different age group and these are the the different health impact or or health uh outcomes and dises that the Ian together is trying to understand and understand the relationship with the environment so we
Have of course the importance of allergy and immun mediated disease that can imagine a a direct association with the environment and as well as the respiratory disease but other disease that might be less obvious for you that how the mental and neurodevelopmental disorders are related to to change in the environment in the
Living space in the uh in the built environment and also all cardiovascular and cardiometabolic diseases that we are studying in the longitudes project are also related to environmental change including air pollutions including noise including change in the built environment on which we are going to to
Focus on today so this is one of the main uh topic or focus of the longitudes project that I’m coordinating here from the University of hu in Finland is to to understand how environmental factors especially noise air pollutions and the built environments might relate to the development of cardiovascular and
Cardiometabolic disease and you can you can read from these uh from these uh slides what are the levels of different disease like type two diabetes like obesity which not only affects adults but there is a lot of children suffering from obesity in the world except in Europe and worldwide and we are trying
To understand how those disease might relate to to the level of pollutions in different placees of Europe and what we are trying to do especially in this longitudes project the approaching the longitudes uh uh overall is to engage into a life course approach so to try to understand how health or diseases is
Developing through the life lifespan and how it is due to potential uh interactions between genetic prositions and how this is potentially modified or programmed by different exposure that affect you through different Windows during the life course and we are again interested in in studying and understanding hair noise and buil
Environments and all those things relates also to the social environments and other uh factors and how those those contribute to the development of uh of those chronic diseases that I’ve been talking about already and how we can try to in understand and design some solutions for for
Preventions so now I’m moving on and introducing the a little bit more the aim of the day we in the longit toes project and many presentation that will follow we will give you more insight about what we are doing we are trying to understand other the urban factors of
The urban exposure how the place where we live the accessibility of the social networks but also the accessibility of different opportunity to be healthy or unhealthy and green space uh food Outlets Etc all those things contributes to Urban Health and how they contribute to either uh make help us making
Preventions or impair the opportunity to prevent properly so now I’m handing over to the next speaker thank you good morning everyone um yes that’s the next slide um I’m um a brief introduction I’m Miriam babber I’m a senior policy advisor working at the city of UT in the Netherlands I’m
Trained as an environmental Scientist by the way um and now working at the public health department and I’m the so-called healthy City coordinator for utre as utre is one of the cities um joining in the network hosted by the wh Europe where um I would
Like to share a little bit of my stories and experiences from as a stakeholder one of the professionals that is looking forward to get um inputs from research like the longy tools and in that sense I am myself uh joining and working in one of the other human Expos own projects
Which is called equal life where we are focusing on the the environmental say the the physical and the social exposes on children’s mental health and uh cognitive development and I’m uh involved in in the expans project as well which we have on the agenda later
On um so a little bit about and let’s see whether it’s going to the next slide I’m doubting I’m I still need to get my control yes um so what is the healthy cities Network um I would like to use this this opportunity to briefly leted a little
Bit uh to show a little bit more about um this uh quite unique Network that started 35 years ago by uh a few active European cities that were um identifying that they were facing similar problems uh similar challenges and they wanted to be become a partner within the wh and
All the the work that is is conducted by wh in and including Health into a lot of other policy domains um this means that today we have a network that is working in its uh seventh program phase celebrating this year 35 uh years of collaboration among cities and uh with uh various un
Un organizations um the network comprises of around um 89 Flagship cities like it’s called like UT those are cities that are a member uh as an individual member of the network but we have cities that are um a member through their national network and in total so we have around 1300 cities and
So we are working and improving this environment for more than 150 million people uh uniquely um the healthy cities network is always having this approach of political commitment so a mayor or a vice mayor is political responsible for being a member of the healthy cities Network we have technical Excellence
Supported by various researches and by who and one of the key topics is community participation um in this phase this project phase we have been mapping the city priorities which is really linking and tapping into what human exposome research is doing as well it is all about healthy Urban environments it’s
About Health Equity it’s about health aging so this lifelong approach and it’s about Child and Adolescent health so I think um we are all on the same table on the same page when we’re talking about the needs that we are addressing and in healthy cities this
All comes together um having like on the left side of this sheet um the healthy Urban living for everyone this is approach that has been adopted by UT if in realizing that Health has to be the outcome of everything that we’re doing whether we work working on infrastructure planning on building new
Schools on The Greening of the city to address climate adaptation it all addresses health and health inequalities so with the current changes in Energy Systems in the mobilities in um the climate adaptation it all in the end is about about uh addressing health and Health Equity so in the healthy cities
This all comes together we work with partners and participation is key and we do that not only in policy making and in implementation but we are trying to involve uh citizens organization throughout the cities research institutes and um private organizations in order to make the shift from Health
In all policies to Health Equity in all policies but in this case and this policy for this online webinar be aware of the elephant in the room the elephant having two meanings it’s um when we saying okay we’re not addressing a difficult topic because we are a little bit hesitant on
How to make this explicit but on the other hand um this is illustrated by the picture seeing that the whole picture and being aware of other perspectives and this is something that we are experiencing for example in the equal life project where we said okay we want to involve stakeholders from the
Beginning of the research and then the first question is but who are the stakeholders which professionals will benefit from the research and that could be professionals like my colleagues working within a city but it could be um people representing National governments or even International governments in the
European Union of the wh but it could be professionals working on the ground um in an NGO or in uh a technical organization so what does it mean to have stakeholders involved in your project are they even allowed to um identify their own research questions
That you would Embrace so what we did in equal life is that we started really early on in identifying uh the stakeholders uh having interviews with them and we have have um at least twice a year workshops together with the researchers in the project sorry and um
With um colleagues of mine from the healthy cities Network so cork Helsinki urina uh lepy are all cities that are a healthy City but that are joining in our human Expos Zone project and what we for example did was a Stak in the stakeholder involvement is that we developed personas so we identified
People that will be relevant for the outcomes or even the research itself and then its outcomes in order to be aware constantly in our work do we have something where we need an a politician in or do we need to reflect on what um a spatial planner within a city would
Would look for and in this way we are um sort of ensuring that we have all the different perspectives on board when we are developing our tools our toolboxes our communication materials so where does policy and science come together then um in ut we have an international strategy and where we have identified
Four key reasons to be internationally active and thus to collaborate with lots of organizations and institutions internationally the first one is knowledge cities around the world face similar challenges so exchanging knowledge at an international level and building knowledge networks contributes to better policy for cities and regions
And and member states enriching our own Knowledge and Skills and professionalization of the organization the other reason to be internationally active is influence we want to have influence we want to be at the table sitting at the next cop on climate change um so and changing European policies what is on the agenda
In Brussels what is to be integrated in new legislation that we have to implement at a local level and how does new research fit in that agenda and in that new or changes of legislation for example on air quality and on noise the environmental noise directive I think
There are ample um uh improvements possible there the third reason is funding you can imagine as a city we want to test we want to be a test beted we want to be a pilot we want want to scale up all the initiatives and the new knowledge but we need funding for that
As well so cities are really eager to be a member in European consortia as well like we are doing in equal life and then the fourth reason is profiling when you are known like myself being internationally active um and representing uh the work in ut but the questions and the challenges we are
Facing as well then you get the opportunity to join in these kind of policy uh webinars and um I’m now currently in Valencia in an high level meeting on healthy cities hosted by the minist by the Spanish Ministry on on public health so that is one of the
Reasons as well and that’s where you can tap into knowledge and and contacts at City level so um with this I would like to end um I’m open for any question and um and I would like to invite you when you have the opportunity come to it
Where in November the 21st until the 23rd we are hosting the annual meeting and Conference of the healthy cities Network so if you are in the neighborhood trains are running planes are flying um will be lovely because there you have the opportunity to meet with um lots of 300 to 400 people
Working in European cities throughout Europe thank you many thanks M that was very insightful I just want to remind the attendees that if you want to ask any question question please use the chat function or use the raise hand emoji the next two presentations are by my Long’s
Colleagues starting with Dr winland a researcher at The interm Institute in France over to you yeah thank you for organizing this a for bless I should have control uh uh so hi everyone so I’m Wan and I’m a researcher from the in Institute in France and I’m a part of the Longs Consortium
So today I’m very glad to contribute to this policy foron by presenting my results on their Urban environment and children’s C metabolic Health So based on the United Nations last report uh Urban population doubled from 1950 to nowadays and reached 60% of the global population from its projection it will keep increasing in
The coming decades which lead to this teline or if is urban so in comparison with rural areas urban areas have undeniable advantages such as greater employment opportunities improved transportation and communication access to Quality educational and medical facilities but living in uh but living in an urban environment could result in
A greater exposure to a pollution noise but also limited green spaces that are not to be detrimental for our health so what we know about the interplay between environmental stressor in an urban setting is that build environment influences both the levels vegetation and air pollution and that vegetation helps to reduce Urban
Pollutants and that all of them could be affected uh that and all of them could affect Health all these environmental stressor Mayer following the type of climate where people live which is a combination of temperature humidity and wind so among the environmental stress or L pollution uh is considered the
Fourth biggest Global health risk factor contributing significantly to the two leading causes of death worldwide which are ischemic H disas and stroke not only air pollution uh but also neighborhood greenness and the build environment composing the urban environment could increase the T Risk by increasing the risk of adiposity
Diabetes uh D lipidemia and hypertension that are important risk factors of C or cardiovascular diseases so our Urban our exposure to Urban environment begin in begins in the warm so indeed evidence show that our accumulated exposure since a prenal period to multiple environmental stressor of the urban environment could
Be linked to an adverse fetal development and lead to Greater causing ta risk in adulthood these evidence are substantiated by the development the developmental origins of health and disase framework so consequently the aim of our study was to investigate whether we can observe the influence of prenatal Urban environment on cardom metabolic Health
Since childhood so what we did uh we used data from a French Birth Cohort study that recruited pregnant women during their first trimester in Two Cities so please note that these two cities differ notably in the climate uh prenatal Urban environment was characterized by the level air
Pollutant so nm2 pm2 by5 pm10 ozone and black carbon the vegetation coverage was measured by ndvi and the build environment which uh include multiple feates uh were grouped into urban rural and rural so children C metabolic Health parameters were measured during the followup clinical examination that
Occurred at six uh five six years of age and cabic health parameters included osity blood pressure and blood parameters these parameters were combined into sex specific uh phenotypes to account for their interc coration so we it identified four phenotypes in BO boys and and girls so boys we have higher adiposity higher insulin
Resistance and healthy lipid profile and high blood pressure and in girls there were high osity half a lipid profile but high blood pressure high insulin resistance and unhealthy lipid profile and high blood pressure so what we found uh the findings here are presented by cities because we analyze them
Separately to account for differences in the climate and local policies in PR year we found that living in a more urbanized sorry that living in a more urbanized environment prenatally was associated with lower adiposity in both both sexes uh living in a more sui rural environmental prenatal Le could be
Associated with a lower likelihood for girls only to have healthier lipid profile and higher blood pressure living in a Mor R area prenatally was associated with higher likelihood for boys to have higher blood pressure and insin resistance and for girls to have higher insin resistance and unhealthier lipid profile we observe no overall
Association between vegetation and air pollutants uh with Children cabic Health so in N living in a more semi- rural area prenal was associated with lower livelihood in boys to have higher insulin resistance higher level of ozone was associated with higher likelihood in boys to have an unhealthy lipid profile
Higher level of pm2.5 was associated with a lower likelihood in boys to have higher blood pressure and weow higher livelihood in girls to have higher insulin resistance and unhealthy liquid profile and we observe no overall association between vegetation with children cardom Med Health in n as well so what are the take-home messages
Uh here we use a real world environment approach by instigating the influence of coexisting urban environmental tributes we observe cities specific associations in puer children whose mothers were living in a more urbanized environment during pregnancy had a lower cardom risk at ages 56 years in N See adverse Association was observed between air
Pollutants and liid pro all independently of the level of vegetation coverage and built environment and overall new new Association were observ between pre- vegetation coverage and children cab Health independently of the build environment so finally these studies suggest that under certain conditions living in an urban environment could be
Rather beneficial for cardic health than detrimental and this could underline the importance of Designing healthful cities for future genation so what’s next the perspectives of this work will be to examine the influence of prenal environment exposure on cabic Health at different stages of Life explore differential effects meaning differences across European
Regions which will provide benchmarks for translating Research into practice and among the type of build environment uh associated with cardiometabolic health we will examine the influence of each build environment attributes that are more amendable to modification and finally uh we will explore passway as physical itg diets that through which urban environment
Might influence cardom Health using appropriate methodological approach so thank you for your attention and uh please follow us uh on our potential social media thank you Onan I would like now to introduce Dr Jules skiros a researcher at The Institute of risk assessment Sciences of R University
Over to you Jules yeah thank you OA so my name is Jules and I will be talking about mobile monitoring of air pollution which is a project that started off with a collaboration with Google Street View since they were driving in every street to take pictures of all the streets anyway so we
Demolished one of the back seats of a Google street F car and installed uh air quality Equipment and drove around in Amsterdam and Copenhagen for about a year and were in that way able to make a very detailed map of in this case Amsterdam where we have very
Localized uh and hyperlocal uh view of how the air pollution is in every Street in the city um and why we do this is that we can measure a lot of locations in a short amount of time because usually the air pollution is measured with a few stationary
Sensors in every city but with a mobile sensor you only need a limited number of devices and they’re they’re very costly and if we can quality control um you can measure on a lot of different uh different locations uh another example of this is when we have a yearly phenomena in utra where
Professors go out on a bike to local primary schools and teach uh their subject for a morning um and they all start at the Academy building in the city center and last year they were all uh going by bike and installed with a air pollution
Sensor on the bike and when I click on play you can see that how quickly a lot of air pollution samples can be uh collected with a few mobile monitoring devices so they all went out on their bike in the morning uh with the sensors you can see
Some higher pollution levels uh on some places and when they returned the air pollution drops a bit and you can see them all return to the city center with a lot of local data of how the air pollution is uh is in the city um then the question is of course
How many times do we need to measure because these measurements only take like a few seconds per per Street segment so difference in meteorology you can be measuring in rush hour or in non-rush hour H you can uh have in incidental events like a moving truck and you suddenly hire a very high
Measurement of air pollution which might be just coincidental and you have to of course take wind direction into account uh this is an example of measurements in Copenhagen where you can see the airport in the bottom right corner and in purple are the highest air pollution levels for ultrain
Particles and you can see on one picture the um pollution levels are more to the left of the airport and on the right picture more in the North and then if you zoom in and look into the data we found that indeed that the wind direction was blowing from the airport
To the higher pollution levels uh in in both pictures so it especially uh from a from a point source or a localized Source the wind direction can be very important um one way to deal with it is also to use models to uh smooth out the incidental peaks of air pollution um but
Then you sort of lose all the um hypercal variation and if we just use the data only map you can still find hot spots uh cold spots um but the downside of course that you need huge amount of data uh and cannot really be extrapolated to places where you haven’t
Measured so we came up with a solution and that is to use a mixed model I will not go into too much detail but it sort of combines a land use aggression model um so a model um for the air pollution in a city with known factors but also combine it with the
Measurements itself so it sort of makes a model out of the city but let every measurement on every street segment still contribute and lower or higher the uh concentration level on that street segment and this way we can do some extra analysis on a city in this case
Amsterdam again where we can look at some hotspots where the concentration is really higher than than places uh like really higher pollution levels and you can definitely see the uh the ring roads the highways popping up and some also some localized uh places in the city center where the where some
Maybe some unexpected hotspots can be found maybe to local Industries or order factors which typically cannot be uh found by a l aggression model uh you can also look at some ratios between uh pollutants uh here are for example nitrogen dioxide and ultra fine particles uh where you can also see the
Really elevated ult particle levels also compared with nitrogen dioxide on the Ring Road but also on the left side of Amsterdam where the airport is so you can still find some elevated pollution levels that way as well and one last example I want to mention is that uh we also did this in
Copenhagen this is one um neighborhoods close to the Central Station where we also mapped the uh ultra fine particles and collaborated with a local Architects urban planners to map where the pollution was higher and where it was lower and combined this where children uh went to school so
Where the kindergarten are and how many children spend time on certain streets so that way we can tried to reduce exposure levels on streets where there are a lot of children and try to invite children to places where the air is cleaner and this is an example of also
The Architects where there’s a busy street with a lot of parking and stop and go traffic but you can see that a lot of um uh children and uh small children um the being here and because of their height they also even closer to the exhaust of cars so it’s could be a
Reason to try to make this place a bit more healthier and uh one way to do this is to create like a sort of buffer and a barrier of Green Space removing the parking spaces so uh children can be uh breed in healthier air um to a simple
Solution of putting and some Greenery in between and the opposite is also true where uh the pollution is less but there’s not an inviting environment you can try to and this is just a drawing that tried to invite and make the space more appealing for people to be so since Amsterdam and Copenhagen
We’ve been uh driving in multiple cities in Europe to try to make uh uh to do this in uh and try to create a European map of especially ultrain particles that does not exist yet but also have localized hyper local maps of the cities that are uh mapped here and we’re trying
To expand this as well um in the near future so if uh cities or universities are interested please contact me then uh perhaps we can uh even broaden up this this map so with that uh thank you for your attention thank you so much Jules it was
Very interesting and finally we have we have johanes Hama the project coordinator at the U Business Center over to you johanes thank you it’s a real pleasure to be talking here with all of you my key message is that let’s start talking about quality of life and uh the topic is connection
Between urban city planning Urban Health and quality of life and like Ola said I’m working in a business Business Center of all here in Finland and I’m a Futures designer here in Finland we are collaborate collaborating with the city city sens and uh business owners in in in our city
Center and um but when we are doing participatory uran planning this is my starting point because if you use questionnaires to directly ask people what they want you are guaranteed to get wrong answers and most of the time people don’t know what they what they need until they witness how things can be
Done in a better way but however by the time that happens people all already want something entirely different and this is challenging challenge to when we are making participatory urban planning and that’s why we are not asking PE we are not asking citizens how should we make citizen better we are not
Asking about ideas we are not interested about their opinions but we are asking what is Meaningful and important to them and the reason for that why things are important to them what what the important meaningful things are and what is the reason because we can use that reasoning in in urban
Planning and this is one of the questionnaires we have we have done in in in ol there was a claim or statement that I find the city center of all beautiful and uh when people thought that this is they they agree with this statement and that that
This is important or meaningful to they them in everyday life it it it asks another question and that question is why and there’s a answer of anonymous president here in all Beauty inspires and it’s talking about cycling routs along the waterways waterways and also parks and that’s why we are linking urban city
Urban Health and meaningful life together it all all is intered together because quality of life here in Olo is being able to cycle through parks and along the waterways to work and study and uh this way we are tring to collect not only hard data because it
Doesn’t answer the question why and we are all in in Future’s design when we are making City centers better healthier and we are talking about quality of life we are really interested about Soft Data the deeper experimental understanding of people’s everyday life and uh there’s a strict link
Between quality of life and sustainable lifestyle also Professor arto o salonin here in Finland has said that in Finland we have recognized in in our studies that people who adopt more sustainable lifestyle if possible they are more satisfied with their own lives so there’s a direct link between also
Between sustainability and quality of life and cycling through the parks and along the waterways are are really linked to those both and in our project we are also doing a new European bhouse initiative we are doing that together with EU so we are doing more together more sustainable and More Beautiful City
Center and that’s our main main goal when we are working with the citizens City and uh business owners of of over and uh my main idea is that we don’t need to talk about standard of living every day here in land we are almost always talking about standard of living and
It’s a main theme in in in politics but can can we start talking also about quality of life because interaction between people and urban living environment and its connection to different Lifestyles and perceived quality of life is a is a really important thing and the key key would be
How can we strengthen the interaction with of DEC decision makers residents and scientists with the citizen science in a way that we are talking about all those different stakeholders are talking about same thing everyday life of ordinary people and at the same time the better quality of life and
This is the way I think we could improve um our city centers and take Health urban urban city Urban Health theme in a big way to our urban planning and start start to make our city centers more beautiful make those City centers more more together and also more beautiful
Uh this is actually my presentation I thank you for your attention and U if if anyone is interested about questions and um um cooperation with us let’s just just let me know thank you so much johanes and thank you to all our esteemed speakers for their insightful presentations our
Discussions today have touched upon some profound intersections of urban planning health and policym and as we transition to our plenary session we’ll delve further into key topics offering our speakers a chance to expand on their perspectives additionally our audience will have the opportunity to engage directly through a Q&A so it’s a chance
Now if you have any questions or anything or followup questions that you would like to ask please use the chat function or the raise hand imy if you’d like to speak directly do we have any questions is clear in the chat don’t see it trly he stopped sharing and maybe I can
See the questions then no there’s nothing El okay there is one now yeah yes uh niol Robinson yes uh Stephen can I please ask you to give Nicola unmute please I’ve done it but it don’t seem to have unmuted everyone um just sorry n just some technical issues let me just
Try can you try speaking now Nicola please yes my mic has been enabled um thank you very much thank you um but you don’t need to see me I’m from environment in the European commission um really interesting um research findings I I had a question for when
Lunan um about the research in pu and N were these findings unexpected um I thinking particularly of the um uh the Puti findings where in a mothers in a more urbanized environment had a lower cardiometabolic risk the CH the children was that was that unexpected and then
Also this the fact that there didn’t seem to be a positive link to vegetation coverage um that that um it seem to be not a factor in either city um that’s quite interesting and well perhaps while you’re answering just clarify what what was meant by vegetation coverage and if
How it relates to sort of plans for urban Greening and um uh and such like um that would be really interesting thanks um so thank you for questions I try to remember all the questions so the first question was it’s okay so your first question was uh about
Differences uh why did I expect to find that Urban environment was associated with actually lower risk of card metabolic outcomes right yes uh so there there was uh there is evidence in the literature saying that actually uh living in a more urbanized environment is contributing to a better cic
Health uh because okay so there’s multiple mechanism multiple Pathways but as I introduced it uh when we’re living in the city we have more access also to medical facilities we to Quality education so that actually will improve all like uh of of our over Health actually
So and uh also we have also more access to uh transport public transportation as well uh so we are more mobile uh there are more possibility for workability uh compared with living uh in a rural area well we need we are very dependent of the cars uh so so there is
Uh now accumulating evidence that actually see saying that living in a more urbanized environments could be uh beneficial uh but of course uh I believe it’s under certain conditions uh so that’s why we found that what we found in puy we didn’t find it in nii
So that uh leads us to think that maybe it’s really also depending on the urban policy uh uh so so that’s why we need like more replication in other City settings uh with different Urban policies and see whether we can find like consistent results uh your second question was about vegetation vegetation coverage
Yeah kind of what that meant and links to sort of urban Greening and whether it’s not as useful as as uh we think if if didn’t affect these results at all yeah I I think uh it’s important uh first so what we use is the uh the the uh vegetation coverage so
Actually it’s uh images of the green uh greenness of the surrounding environment but actually uh what is important is not like it’s not reflecting necessary like uh having HS for kids uh it’s not reflecting really the quality of the greenness uh because we could live in
Like close to a forest but if there’s no like pedestrians uh like uh pedestrian Road or biking road to access to it uh or to like uh engage like to use it actually it may be not not beneficial in terms of physical activity so so I I believe it’s uh how
To think of the quality of the green spaces and the accessibility exactly yeah that’s really helpful thank you very much welcome thank you very much Nia and thank you uh just to let you know Miriam unfortunately will have to leave in 10 minutes so if anyone has any
Burning questions to Miriam before she does um okay yes San please go ahead yeah I do have a questions to to mam because it was really really interesting and uh really impressed by the the work that you have doing and what in this uh wh healthy City so very
Genuine questions how can me as a citizen of hu I can uh convince my city to be to join this network is there have we got a role as Citizens to do that or as a as a researcher how does it work for you to be joining that do you
Remember yes um yes sure uh we’re not even that long a member we um became a member in 2016 uh compared to some cities that are a member for already 35 years um and that was because our politicians had this ambition this Vision about UT Health European living for everyone and
They wanted to have that as a kind of um International branding and then we learned about the healthy cities network of wh and then we said okay then we need to be a member of that Network evidently but in general I think um everyone could suggest to become a
Member um whether it’s from the citizens or from the research site uh or just the the the people uh being aware of it um there is a procedure to become a member so it it has to be um started initiated by the mayor because it’s really important to have this political
Commitment um as the politicians have a role in the the network themselves so in the meeting in November we will have a high delegation of Mayors throughout Europe joining for that meeting and uh agreeing upon what are the topics that they want to talk about well we do have
Uh a quite a a strong link with Academia as well we do have um in addition to this political committee where we have a selection of 17 mayors that are preparing the political agendas every time we have a scientific committee as well where we have professors uh researchers um advising the healthy
Cities Network in wh on what are the topics that we need to address where do you as a research see um the importance and like we are always saying as as a as a city or as a politician at a local level you have a certain amount of money
That you can spend and you want to spend it in a way that contributes to to your citizens to have them as a healthy and and and sustainable city um and research in that is key because you can only invest your Euro once so you want to do
It in a good way and that’s why um like I said it’s so important that we as cities are communicating are joining with researchers and maybe jointly even influencing um the European agenda and European legislation and um the the healthy City network is is a way to do
So so yeah I convince your mayor mayor of all yes would be good have to work with that youest yeah and there is like I said there are some national networks and the Netherlands doesn’t have it because UT is the only city uh being a member but for example in Finland in
Denmark in France Germany UK there are National networks so there are quite a lot of cities that decide not to be um a designated City like UT to go through the whole procedure but to become a member of the national network and the national network is is being designated
So they have to to run the procedures um and there are several Finnish uh cities but throughout Europe like I said that are a member thank you so much I think we have one more question we’ll be able to take that before you leave yes that’s fine U
Yeah so from your extensive experience as the policy adviser so just like silvan’s interested with ULU I’m sure other C are also interested so what recommendations do you have for cities that are just beginning their Journey towards creating healthier Urban environments um I think um there are a
Few and one is a little bit difficult to influence because that’s the political climate um in ut we were lucky that we are having um left and green political parties leading local government already since 10 to 12 years so then it’s easier to address sustainability um equal opportunities and health uh you need
This this this political commitment but as a as a researcher or a citizen or yeah as a citizen you can sort of influence it but as as a professional working at a municipal Hall you can’t but that’s that’s one of the key reasons that um that you have health on the
Agenda and sustainability the other one is develop um long-term strategies um in ut we have an urban planning strategy for 2040 in which we introduced the 10-minute City so saying okay every citizen should be able to reach schools Education Health Services uh you name it green within 10 minutes
Walking or biking distance and this is a strategy that that is uh valid until 2040 at least so um independent from the polit political terms of four years the same goes for our Public Health policy plans we have have a constant building every four years on public health policy
Plans and where we um make the linkages and it’s not the plan of the public health um department where I’m working but it’s the the policy plan of the whole organization so it is about urban planning it’s about work and income it’s about education it’s about the the
Social services it’s all in that plan and that’s my third recommendation it’s interdisciplinary working you need to to link to your colleagues with infrastructure with the green and biodiversity with the work and income Department to learn your language and to establish interdisciplinary teams and building this um for example for
Physical spatial um planning we have interdisciplinary um neighborhood teams where colleagues from noise air quality grain Health infrastructure economy whatever they are meeting on a two weekly basis discussing all the plans all minor and big plans in that specific neighborhood and then agreeing on what are the priorities where do we need to
Focus on what kind of issues do we see here and how can we address this in our projects programs and new policies so it’s about yeah that’s that’s about interdisciplinarity which is really key and in that case you’re more open to um including other perspectives I from researchers from International
Colleagues from the wh from the citizens I fully agree um you need to listen to the citizens as well and not only collect the data but collect the narratives and the stories so that’s sort of my um list of tips what we learned during the last years thank you so muchan that’s that’s
Really useful and if anyone has any further questions for Miram please feel free to drop them in the chat and then then we can send them over to Miriam she can kindly get back to us later on thank you so much for joining thank you and I
Will leave you then byebye bye bye take care I think yanas the same question was also addressed to you of um what recommendations do you have for cities and I think you touched upon the quality of life and prioritizing quality of life rather than just standards of living so
Maybe you would like to just add to that from your perspective of what are the recommendations you have for cities to create healthier Urban environments with better quality of life yeah my answer would be the involving in involving people to the discussion politicians usually take really close close look on if we can
Really show that people citizens in in all are thinking in a diff uh in in certain way in our project we are making a desired future narratives with the people so if if we are succeed on those stories that are people can citizens relate I think there will be a much more
Political pressure to take the these issues in in in more seriously and and and that’s probably my point of view to this discussion uh my opinion is that it’s more important to the perspective perspective of dealing with the issue is more important and focusing on certain uh problems or certain things
So I think the quality of this discussion of quality of life is is really important and and through through this Con conversation with the decision makers City officials residents and scientists we can build an understanding of everyday life and uh and uh maybe choose desired future together and uh invest in quality of
Life of people and I think politicians are interested about these themes we can show that City are really interested about those also thank You can you hear me thank you johanes thank you so much so I think you’ve touched upon a lot about Community engagement and engaging all potential stakeholders and politicians and I think that’s the tricky part and that’s what we’re trying to do in various projects
And how to make sure we capture all of these needs uh very well uh Silvan you had a question is it for youan specifically not not specifically it can be addressed by by everyone I think it’s also I think it’s very very interesting very happy to see the also the
Presentations by uh by when about these these associations where uh we are using different types of samples in the populations to to try to integrate interrogate those those associations or or to engage with some part of the population samples of the populations to know what they uh feel what they are
Interested in but uh we also know that we are missing uh many invisible uh observations and problems and that it’s often people with higher Social uh opportunity that participates to those to those project it’s also people with interest or higher uh educations that might join your engagement uh
Participation so how do we try to continue engage with those who are maybe in Iron although we don’t know their needs but we think that they have higher needs so that’s what are the strategy maybe for for you your or what are your feeling maybe you saw this is really
Fantastic how you engage with the populations to to be able to to contribute to to know what is the quality of their environment and how this can be added to together sorry it’s many questions it’s also many not easy to answers um if I can answer the first
Question I would answer it by saying that if we succeed on on talking about everyday life of the citizens and we find really the important and meaningful themes to citizens of all and we are and we are making development project to those themes then we can involve people who
Are who are not high educated or or have higher needs and uh actually we have succeeded in those in a small small scale so I if we can find the really important and meaningful themes that are important to people we we can engage also people who are not so active or not
Not in in in special needs and I I think it’s even also as important to engage silent ma majority people who are not participating normally so I I think this is a really important question and we are trying to find answers to you every day thank you so much johanes Jules or R
If you’d like to follow up on silvan’s question and just to riate I think Silvan you’ve highlighted some of the gaps currently that are different research not being able to capture um those who are not as fortunate as others and those from lower economic lower economic soci economic status vulnerable
Populations for instance or those on more remote areas so uh again these are all maybe research gaps that exist in current researcher evidence so how would you jwes maybe and then onean uh recommend to address these as well yeah that’s indeed a difficult question to answer as it is indeed I
Think also session about the urban exposome and so the rural population said maybe a little more tricky to uh to get to but um I I I wouldn’t have the answer to that yeah I think it’s it’s it’s a hard answer I think we’re all trying to to
Reach out to those who are uh not easy to reach out but I think the whole point of this uh forum is just to have all these different perspectives and thinking together and see how we can build Solutions future on and addressing these research gaps um hopefully we can
Get out with key messages by highlighting that when do you have anything that you would like to add from your perspective no yes I agree with jel that’s a very tough questions um how to to to reach uh uh um more vulnerable like population in terms of socio economic position
Um uh I mean the I I I only have like some some example in my head but uh like we know like for example I’m taking the the case of Paris because that we are gr but uh we know that uh low socio economic uh uh population tend to be
Like far away of the city center and uh most of the time they have also less access to public transports transportation and uh even if they have Parks there’s a safety questions that makes uh the part like even if it’s accessible there’s a safety reason for
Families not to go into the parks so yeah I think I think it’s really hard to like transport or findings on high income population to any other uh population and especially uh the low socio economic positions and we definitely need more evidence uh on this and uh eventually coming from Intervention studies as
Well that could help in the ca questions uh but uh yes 1 St question yeah I think that that’s true and and I mean when we try to influence by urban planning I mean the the plans are being made 20 years ago so we need
To be there as early on as possible to to make these interventions already happening in in the architectural phase in in the planning phase thank you so much thank you and and um does anyone of the audience have any additional questions that you would like to address to the
Plary please feel free to put it in the chat or just raise your hands um sorry raw help was is are you you’re unmuted did you like to ask a question okay maybe a question to you Silvan that uh I had um so how do you believe the interplay between urban
Environments and health will evolved in the coming decades from your experience wow cool a triy question for me yeah thanks l so okay can you can you yeah just how do you think just how do you think from your experience and your research and working with the urban exposome how do you think
This interplay between urban environments and health will just evolve in the next decade where do you see us going in the future oh well I I well they we should should discuss with um with yanes because he he sees the future I’m not not sure I see the
Future I see many POS possible Futures and there many there are many possible uh what if scenarios that are always a little bit blurried as we know with uh with our uh hope or our fear of also what can uh policy can decide in what what things
Can happen well if on the if we look at usually when trying to understand the future you try to understand a little bit the the past and what what has been developed during the past year so what what jul has been mentioning is very important we now realize that the
Decision that we took 20 years ago we are starting to see there effect positive or negative now so that’s and and we are also trying to understand and explore why and try to to prevent these things so that I’m quite uh hopeful that now there’s a little bit more uh Health
In uh in urban planning and that will be one positive things that should should happen more often I’m uh I’m also very um uh hopeful that uh activities like what Yan is and what Miriam is is are leading or are going to to to drive citizens toward it’ss uh
More healthy and more inclusive behaviors TR to but that’s okay I’m a I’m a I’m a dreamer I’m also an academic I believe that we can we can do that and we can uh we we have opportunity to to reach but uh we also know that it’s very fragile uh
Situations that is not only affected by the the policy but also by the health in general so there’s also the needs to to invest not only on the environment but also on the health because that uh we I say that or I recommend that we also engage much more uh
Bidirectional uh Association type of research so to realize that that the health of the cities is is the health of the citizens is is indeed affecting the quality of the of the environment and that’s something that is also very important to recognize and to to really
Have a again this exposome approach so I think then when indeed you realize that a city environment can be uh healthy in a way or can be can promote or associate to health it also means that uh we are making it at the expense of other types
Of environments and the and we are losing people uh in the in the problem so I think we have a lot of work uh we have lots of example that can work and we have lots example that it’s not so expensive to make it work and uh So yeah I don’t know whether I answered your question about the the future I think the well the future if I would like to say one thing is that it’s probably in in intervention so now that we move from observations to to try that’s it thank you thank you San uh obviously
We can’t tell what the future health holds for us but with with all the efforts that have been put and with all the knowledge that we have that we didn’t have years back uh we can plan better I think for a better future and know what needs to be addressed in a
Better way um anyone else that has any questions for our plary before we close no okay uh Nicola has also kindly shared the link to the EU Green City Accord if you’re interested you can check that in the chat as well and if there’s no further questions maybe I can ask the
Plenary just for one or two sentences like key takeaways for the audience today before we close up the session and maybe we’ll start with you uh yanes um I I think I said it said it earlier about starting discussing about quality of life together with all those stakeholders that’s really important and
That that would lead us to to better use of science Health Science in in urban planning thank you yanis and over to you Jules yeah maybe I can follow up on that that it’s I said earlier it’s important to keep in mind that uh I mean urban
Planning is done already some time ago or what is being done we get results uh years later it’s very another example of F Track by the way is we’re designing our neighborhood where they promoting it as we can live there five years in good health longer um with
Some uh adjustments to with green with air pollution with no fast food chains with no uh um only shared cars and it would be really interesting to see how that uh works out in the in the future thank you thank you Jules one more um maybe so maybe take home message
Is also to think Beyond Urban Health so thinking about the one health approach like the the the world’s Health the Urban Health depends on the World Health on the all the the different level of health so maybe something to to consider in your future research so thank you and so a final key
Message you’re muted one word uh collaboration agreed agreed well thank you so much uh I’d like to share to thank the panelists and attendees for this enriching discussion these intersections between urban spaces and health as we’ve discussed today are intricate and they demand multidisiplinary collaboration San has just highlighted and a heartfelt thank
You for all of you for making this forum very enlightening and uh productive um just I’ll just share my slides again okay so to conclude uh the outputs and tools from the longit tools project and other ehan projects will become available on longy tools website and the ehan website as they
Arise and our next policy form is scheduled on the 20th of March 2024 to stay updated with a longy tools project please follow us on Twitter or x uh or LinkedIn and you can also contact us via our website uh your feedback is very valuable so please take a moment to fill
Out the event feedback form that declare will be sharing now on the chat and if you have any suggestions for future topics we would love to hear back uh from you and just to conclude I just cannot emphasize enough the value of your participation and a massive thank
You to our esteamed speakers for sharing their insights and I really hope to see all of you uh again our future forums wishing you all a wonderful day ahead thank you