The Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health (CUSSH) is a four-year Wellcome Trust funded project.

It aims to deliver key global research on the systems that connect urban development and population health.

HEAL is a project partner, together with thirteen partners from the UK, Kenya, China, Brazil, Belgium, Austria, Australia, and the USA.

Project objectives:

  • To review potential solutions for healthy sustainable urban development which addresses the roles of technological innovation, city governance, financing mechanisms, infrastructure and behaviour change.
  • To establish methods for tracking and evaluation of the progress towards city-specific sustainability and health goals, and for comparing the impact of city development trajectories.
  • To develop and apply models of impact on population health, health inequalities, and socioeconomic and environmental parameters of alternative urban development pathways.
  • To use participatory methods to undertake iterative engagements with stakeholders in selected partner cities in order to evaluate and understand processes to help implement the transformative changes needed to meet local and global health and sustainability objectives.
  • To develop a programme of public engagement and capacity building to ensure wide participation in the development (‘co-creation’) and use of research evidence by decision- makers and other stakeholders to help ensure environmental and health objectives receive appropriate weight in public policy.

Resources from the CUSSH project:

  • A digital booklet on the project is here.
  • A series of policy briefings can be found here.