UBD Policy project continues science to policy consultation with workshop in Zagreb

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) recently hosted a half day science to policy consultation workshop with representatives of the Zagreb administration and other stakeholders, on how to reduce the urban burden of disease in Zagreb through environmental policies. This consultation workshop was the second in a series of stakeholder engagement activities in various cities in Europe.

The research project Urban Burden of Disease Estimation for Policy-making (UBDPolicy), of which HEAL is a partner, aims to estimate the health and socio-economic costs and benefits of air quality, noise, lack of urban green spaces, heat and temperature, physical activity, and inequity for nearly 1,000 European cities in EU. The project aims to facilitate the stakeholder dialogue to strengthen the uptake of health impact assessments in policy-making and city planning at all levels.

Science-to-policy consultation workshops are an opportunity for researchers to receive input on which data is most needed for impactful current and future policy-making.

The city of Zagreb has been chosen as one of the case study cities, for which detailed health cost and benefits assessments will be developed.  Other cities are Brussels, Warsaw, Barcelona, Basel, Manchester, Munich, Sofia, Utrecht, Copenhagen, and Bradford. UBDPolicy is seeking stakeholders’ expertise to input and co-create research scenarios to best reflect policy needs.

During the workshop, researchers and Zagreb stakeholders explored relevant current and prospective policies and strategies which will serve as the basis for calculating health impacts and benefits of various measures, including in the transport plan “Master Plan of the city of Zagreb”, the air quality program, the climate neutrality plan, as well as tackling inequities issues in the city.

Further workshops are being planned for this spring.