The Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities is a global, multi-institutional, transdisciplinary initiative providing evidence-based spatial and urban policy indicators to advocate for and track progress towards healthy and sustainable cities for all.
Scorecards and extended reports with the spatial and policy indicator results for all of the 25 cities in the observatory are available for free. Current Australian Cities include Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney.
The Observatory aims to provide comparable spatial and policy indicators of healthy and sustainable urban design and planning for cities across the globe. It is anticipated that it will:
- Be used as a surveillance, reporting, goal setting, policy making, practical guidance and advocacy tool.
- Encourage the scaling up of healthy and sustainable urban design and planning efforts.
- Provide data comparability across multiple cities of the world.
- Grow to include additional city planning indicators and comparable data for over 1000 global cities.
The indicators used in the observatory rely on evidence-based benchmarks, and will allow tracking progress for attaining cities that, by design, maximise people’s health and wellbeing, whilst contributing to climate change mitigation.
The Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities was initiated in May 2022 by the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicators Collaboration to host the indicators developed for The Lancet Global Health series on Urban Design, Transport and Health.
It involves a transdisciplinary and multi-organisational partnership among the People, Health and Place Unit of the Prevention Research Centre, of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, USA (website sponsor), the International Society of Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH), the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), the International Society of Urban Health (ISUH), and the Executive Committee of the Global Healthy and Sustainable City-Indicators Collaboration.
Sign up to receive updates from Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities here, or contact via email info@healthysustainablecities.org
Resource submitted by Sheree Hughes, Heart Foundation
