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Cities unite to strengthen resilience through public health
Global initiative addresses the need to move beyond reactive healthcare systems, toward preventative, inclusive, and climate-smart urban health strategies.
A new global partnership, ResilientCities, Reimagining Health, is bringing together 22 cities across 15 countries to help tackle climate-related health risks and build healthier urban environments.
This Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Lighthouse Project, launched by the Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities) and the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Health Systems Task Force, with support from Reckitt and Bupa, aims to empower cities to lead preventative, climate-smart, public health action.
Urban resilience-ensuring health equity
Through a new Community of Practice, cities will benefit from shared tools, insights, and technical support to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce emissions, and drive urban resilience-ensuring health equity and community wellbeing are at the heart of climate solutions.
According to R-Cities, with health challenges rapidly worsening due to climate change, cities can help drive preventative approaches and improve healthcare outcomes for residents, reducing healthcare systems’ costs and emissions, and enhancing resilience.
These actions lay the foundation for healthier, more inclusive urban environments – where equitable access to health services and climate-resilient living conditions are prioritised. At the core of the new partnership is a new Community of Practice, a collaborative platform designed to accelerate action that prioritises the health and wellbeing of populations most at risk.
“By empowering cities to lead with practical solutions and shared learning, we’re helping to meet today’s challenges while building a more just, healthier, and sustainable future”
Chaired by senior city officials from Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Greater Manchester, and Lagos, the new Community of Practice aims to:
- Enhance the evidence base on the efficacy and co-benefits of preventative solutions
- Develop and test practical new tools to build capacity within cities to support decision-making and unlock implementation
- Pilot and implement public health interventions that are climate-sensitive, cost-effective, and equitable
- Demonstrate the role that wider stakeholders – including healthcare – can play in supporting health and wellbeing in cities around the world.
R-Cities reckons this major global initiative responds to an urgent need to move beyond reactive, treatment-based healthcare systems, toward preventative, inclusive, and climate-smart urban health strategies.
With worsening climate-related health risks – from extreme heat to poor air quality – cities must play a central role in safeguarding public health while reducing system-wide costs and emissions. This effort recognises that health systems are not only critical responders to climate threats, but also powerful champions of action, with the potential to shape healthier, more inclusive cities through advocacy, innovation, and care delivery.
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In a report funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and conducted by Yale University School of Public Health and Resilient Cities Network, more than 80 per cent of surveyed cities expressed interest in contributing data, engaging in peer learning through a Community of Practice, and piloting solutions at the intersection of urban climate resilience, public health, and equity.
This research initiated a Community of Practice for climate and health funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Community of Practice is now being scaled up by Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Health Systems Task Force with technical support from Mode Economics and Yale University School of Public Health.
“Through this Community of Practice, cities are not just sharing solutions; they are stepping up to lead a global movement that puts people’s health, equity, and resilience at the heart of climate action”
Dr Folayinka Dania, chief resilience officer for Lagos, Nigeria, said: “This Community of Practice represents a major step forward for city-led preventative interventions that also support climate resilience – centering health, equity, and the lived realities of city residents.”
Dania continued: “By empowering cities to lead with practical solutions and shared learning, we’re helping to meet today’s challenges while building a more just, healthier, and sustainable future.”
Outputs from the partnership will include:
- The Case for Action: Demonstrating the need for place-based, climate-sensitive, preventative health approaches, including: quantitative evidence on how climate will impact public health needs; key interventions to improve health; reduce costs and emissions; build equity and resilience; and a high-level framework for successful, city-led implementation
- Practical Guide for Cities: A hands-on resource developed to help cities embed preventative healthcare and health equity considerations directly into their climate plans and resilience strategies. This guide will provide actionable steps, informed by peer experiences, to strengthen local capacity and planning
- Urban Health Resilience Screening tool: A bespoke tool created to help cities in the Community of Practice assess and build portfolios of implementable, preventative, climate-sensitive city projects. It will enable cities to: identify and prioritise tailored interventions that address their specific urban health risks
- Evaluate the co-benefits of these interventions, including for public health, health system resilience, equity and decarbonisation (both quantitative and qualitative).
“The health impacts of climate change are already being felt across our cities – and they are not felt equally,” said Katrin Bruebach, global director, programmes and delivery for the Resilient Cities Network. “Through this Community of Practice, cities are not just sharing solutions; they are stepping up to lead a global movement that puts people’s health, equity, and resilience at the heart of climate action. This is how we move from ambition to action, and from knowledge to meaningful impact.”
Cities confirmed to be taking part in the Community of Practice are:
Berkeley, US; Greater Manchester, UK; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Broward County, US; Lagos, Nigeria; Salvador, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; London, UK; Santa Fe, Argentina; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Christchurch, New Zealand; Montevideo, Uruguay; Semarang, Indonesia; Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Surat, India; Nairobi, Kenya; Colima, Mexico; Penang, Malaysia; Sydney, Australia; Glasgow, UK; and Ramallah, State of Palestine.
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How can cities implement climate-smart public health interventions effectively?What tools support cities in assessing urban health resilience risks?How do preventative health strategies reduce emissions and healthcare costs?Which stakeholders are essential for advancing urban health equity initiatives?What metrics evaluate co-benefits of climate-sensitive health interventions?climate actionClimate change/ResilienceConnectivity & DataDataEnergy & EnvironmentGovernance and CitizenHealth & Social CareinclusivityLagosManchesterMexico Cityresilience
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