THE URBAN BURDEN OF DISEASE ESTIMATION FOR POLICY MAKING

Project Information

UBDPOLICY

Grant agreement ID: 101094639

DOI

10.3030/101094639

EC signature date 24 November 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Health

Total cost

€ 2 765 718,75

EU contribution

€ 2 765 718,75

Coordinated by

FUNDACION PRIVADA INSTITUTO DE SALUD GLOBAL BARCELONA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - UBDPOLICY (THE URBAN BURDEN OF DISEASE ESTIMATION FOR POLICY MAKING)

Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Over 70% of Europe's population lives in urban areas, which drive innovation and wealth but also contribute significantly to pollution and disease. Comprehensive health and socioeconomic impact estimates of urban and transport planning are scarce, and there are no consistent data to track changes over time. Policy and decision-makers need better insights into these impacts, relationships, and alternative scenarios to support healthier urban and transport planning. The UBDPolicy project aims to improve health impact and socioeconomic cost-benefit estimation of environmental stressors, enhance methodological approaches, and promote best practices in urban planning. It will produce health and socio-economic estimates for nearly 1,000 European cities, updated every three years, focusing on stressors like air pollution, noise, heat, and green space. Detailed assessments will be conducted for 11 case study cities: Barcelona, Basel, Bradford, Brussels, Copenhagen, Greater Manchester, Munich, Sofia, Utrecht, Warsaw, and Zagreb.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During RP2, the project achieved significant progress across all technical and scientific work packages.

WP1 advanced systematic reviews and multi-exposure Health Impact Assessment (HIA) methods, developing new exposure-response functions and integrating environmental determinants with population health outcomes, supported by workshops and collaboration with WHO EMAPEC and other experts.

WP2 organized a workshop on integrating equity into HIA, contributed to standardized health and well-being indicators, and developed microsimulation models to assess competing risks, with support from UCAM, Swiss TPH, and ISGlobal in data collection, population and mortality estimates, and model refinement.

WP3 evaluated cost-benefit analysis (CBA) approaches, delivering workshops and training for consortium partners and defining key parameters and datasets for economic assessments of urban interventions.

WP4 made substantial progress in developing and harmonizing European datasets on air pollution, greenspace, temperature, and biodiversity, including the first harmonized European Biodiversity Index, providing essential inputs for scenario modelling and health impact analyses.

WP5 advanced HIAs for nearly 1,000 cities, integrating multiple environmental exposures and testing urban intervention scenarios in case study cities such as low-traffic neighborhoods, urban greening, and electrification, while methodological innovations included linking agent-based transport models with multi-exposure HIA methods.

WP6 strengthened the connection between scientific evidence and policy by mapping stakeholders, analyzing relevant policies, and engaging through workshops and webinars, informing scenario development and model assumptions.

WP7 ensured project coordination, timely management, and the promotion of synergies across all work packages and the METEOR Cluster.

Overall, RP2 consolidated technical capabilities, advanced multi-exposure HIA methodologies, refined scenario modelling, and generated high-resolution environmental and health datasets, establishing a robust foundation for the project’s scientific, economic, and societal impacts.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Novel multi-exposure health impact assessment methods have been developed, integrating air pollution, noise, green space, heat, and physical activity into coherent quantitative models. These approaches allow more accurate estimation of health impacts from complex urban environments and support scenario testing for interventions such as urban greening, low-traffic neighborhoods, and electrification of transport.

High-resolution, harmonized environmental datasets across Europe—including air pollution, temperature, greenspace, and a newly developed European Biodiversity Index—represent a significant advancement for large-scale health impact studies, enabling comparative analyses across hundreds of cities. Advanced agent-based transport models have been successfully combined with health impact modelling, providing a unique tool to predict how urban planning and mobility interventions influence population health outcomes.

The project has also generated methodological and technical outputs that can inform further research, support local and regional policy-making, and enhance international collaboration. Key needs to ensure uptake and success include further validation of multi-exposure models, integration with socio-economic data, expansion to additional urban contexts, engagement with city stakeholders, and alignment with supportive regulatory frameworks and standards for health-informed urban planning. These outputs provide a strong foundation for potential commercialisation of modelling tools, wider application in urban health policy, and the creation of evidence-based guidelines for sustainable and health-promoting cities.

WPs UBDPolicy

Links between urban and transport planning, environmental exposures, physical activity, and health