Project description
Towards improving urban health and well-being
Understanding the interaction between people and urban spaces is key to finding ways to enhance citizens' health. In particular, the signals generated in our neurobiological architecture, which controls ours emotions and decisions, during this interaction may provide invaluable insights. The EU-funded eMOTIONAL Cities project will characterise the urban health challenges and inequalities. Its work will lead to innovative eMOTIONAL city mapping that will be produced from spatial analysis on social and health data and neuroscience experiments. To do this, the project will draw on urban planning and design, neuroscience, and data science and technology.
Objective
As the world is becoming more urbanized and cities of the future need to be people-centred, robust evidence-based knowledge on the underlying biological and psychological processes, by which Urban Planning & Design influence brain circuits and human behaviour, will be critical for policy making on urban health. Emotions are key drivers of our decisions; similarly, our choices are the conduit for our well-being and health. Thus, research focusing on the signals triggered in our neurobiological architecture, responsible for emotions and decisions, while humans interact with the urban environment will shed light on how to improve population health, physical and/or mental. The eMOTIONAL Cities project was designed to fully characterise the intensity and complexity of urban health challenges and inequalities. By exploring the mechanisms and their dynamic, it complements conventional descriptive perspectives focused on exposure-outcome associations. It adopts a systems approach, based on natural experiments and actual problems of case-study cities (Copenhagen, Lisbon, London; and Lansing/Detroit in the USA). Building on theoretical foundations, novel eMOTIONAL city mapping will be generated by combining spatial analysis on social/health data with neuroscience experiments. Our research relies on mixed (qualitative/quantitative) methods and uses multidisciplinary instruments from Urban Planning & Design (GIS for land use, transport, climate and health), Neuroscience (fMRI, EEG) and Data Science & Technology (AI, Big Data and VR/AR reality). The analysis also addresses gender aspects and contemplates a clinical study to show that urban design can impact a vulnerable elderly population at risk of developing dementia. Finally, a novel machine-learning scenario discovery framework will allow testing and impact assessment (for cost-effectiveness, barriers and facilitators) of urban policy strategies to turn EU cities into smart, sustainable and inclusive environments. The eMOTIONAL Cities is a part of the European Cluster on Urban Health.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
1600 276 Lisboa
Portugal