Commentary: A road map for future data-driven urban planning and environmental health research

Abstract

Recent advances in data science and urban environmental health research utilise large-scale databases (100s-1000s of cities) to explore the complex interplay of urban characteristics such as city form and size, climate, mobility, exposure, and environmental health impacts. Cities are still hotspots of air pollution and noise, suffer urban heat island effects and lack of green space, which leads to disease and mortality burdens preventable with better knowledge. Better understanding through harmonising and analysing data in large numbers of cities is essential to identifying the most effective means of disease prevention and understanding context dependencies important for policy.

We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019–2023” Program (CEX2018-000806-S) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the Ayudas para la Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU) 2020–2024 doctoral funding (FPU19/05210); support from the grant CEX2023-0001290-S funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033; support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program; support from Centro de Investigación Biomédica en red (CIBER) Epidemiología y Salud Pública and support from the Urban Burden of Disease Estimation for Policy Making 2023–2026 Horizon Europe project (grant number 101094639).