Health Equity in Cities: Linking evidence, communities and policy

As the place-based nature of urban health inequalities gains increasing recognition, a key challenge is developing ways to understand and respond to the complex, layered processes through which urban environments shape and play a role in health equity across different contexts. Bringing together perspectives from epidemiology, urban health research, policy, and community practice, the speakers will explore how structural conditions, social connections, and the built environment influence everyday experiences of health and inequity in cities in both the Global South and Global North. The event will offer critical insights into built environment and health equity-centred approaches that link empirical evidence, community engagement, and policy action to advance health justice in urban settings.

Orgainzed by

Lusi Morhayim
Lecturer in Social Sciences of the Built Environment
Bartlett Scholl of Sustainable Construction

David Osrin
Professor of Global Health
Institute for Global Health

Marcella Ucci
Professor in Healthy and Sustainable Buildings
Bartlett Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering

James Wilson
Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy

Haim Yacobi
Professor of Development Planning
Bartlett Development Planning Unit

Miss Siqi Ma
PhD student and Global Engagement Fund Research assistant

Info: Professor Caiaffa proposes an equity-centered urban health paradigm that links empirical rigour, community engagement and capacity building to advance health justice in cities.
The talk will trace the trajectory and contributions of the Observatory for Urban Health in Belo Horizonte as a catalyst for a renewed urban health paradigm.
For over two decades, multidisciplinary, multiscale approaches have revealed intra-urban inequalities often obscured in aggregate data.
The Observatory has sustained an intersectoral commitment to producing territorially grounded, community-led and policy-relevant evidence.
Operating at the interface of research, public policy and community action, the Observatory has supported municipal governments, health services and civil society in addressing complex challenges such as housing precarity, environmental risk, violence and climate change.

Info: Professor Kawachi will summarize the evidence for strengthening social connection as a route to achieving urban health equity.
The 2025 report of the WHO Commission on Social Connection drew attention to the importance of social bonds in improving health and well-being, promoting economic mobility, and strengthening the resilience of communities in responding to crises.
Like other resources that drive health, access to social connections is not equitably distributed in society. The talk will address two questions:
What types of social connection should we seek to strengthen? Bonding connections between individuals and groups, or bridging connections between individuals and groups from diverse social and economic backgrounds.
How can policies mitigate inequities in social connections across diverse urban groups?

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Host or Publisher University College London