Coordinating Housing and Health for Better Quality of Life

On 7 May 2025, UN-Habitat, WHO, and GCH partnered to organize the workshop “Addressing Urban Health Challenges in a Changing World” to drive forward collaborative action on urban development and public health.

Urbanization has the potential to improve public health by enhancing access to essential services, promoting healthier lifestyles, and driving infrastructure and healthcare innovations. Well-planned urban development can provide clean water, sanitation, healthcare, education, and green spaces, leading to better health outcomes. It can also foster health-promoting policies, stronger social cohesion, and higher economic growth. Sustainable and inclusive urban planning that prioritizes both physical and mental health can contribute to realizing several of these benefits.

Led by Nathalie Roebbel (WHO) and Graham Alabaster (UN-Habitat), the workshop took stock of the achievements and lessons learned of the 2021 WHO-UN-Habitat MoU, building on the 2018 WHO Housing and Health Guidelines, and explored the thematic gaps in existing tools and interventions related to urban development and health. It focused on how these gaps might be overcome in the future to reduce disparities in health outcomes. It examined the underlying drivers of these disparities, such as climate change, sprawling slums, migration, conflicts, and displacement and their resulting impacts, including mental health issues, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and the spread of vector-borne diseases, among others.

Speakers agreed that housing is a key determinant of health and it is strongly linked to urban sustainability goals: SDG3 and SDG11 need to have a stronger connection. Developing complementary metrics was proposed. We need a paradigm shift to look at urban health as a development policy tool and consider investment in housing as an investment in health and therefore socio-economic welfare – reflecting the triple billion targets of WHO.

Asking the experts and the audience about “What do you see as the most pressing public health challenge linked to housing conditions?” the following topics stood out among the answers: Heat, Informal settlements, Climate change, Overcrowding, Access to services, and Air pollution.

The 2021 WHO-UN-Habitat Memorandum of Understanding was the starting point of the discussion. Its objective is “to provide a framework of cooperation and understanding, and to facilitate collaboration between the Parties to further their shared goals and objective to promote and monitor global action to improve urban health.”  The topics of mutual interest include urban planning; urban basic services (such as water, sanitation and waste management); air quality, transportation and road safety; housing; migration; communicable diseases; the management of the epidemic risk associated with vector-borne diseases; etc.

Good examples of collaboration and project implementation included the Healthy Cities Network, the Ageing Cities Network, the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on NCDs, the Young Gamechangers Initiative, among others. Projects on air pollution in Accra (Ghana) and Kathmandu (Nepal), on youth-led urban development and design in Jatni (India), Armenia (Colombia) and Bargny (Senegal), on community-led slum upgrade in Nairobi (Kenya) are just some examples where health care and urban development were jointly advanced.

The speakers shed light on a variety of issues which were not included in the MoU or were insufficiently implemented and therefore need more attention in the future:

• Mental health
• Urban food systems
• Sustainable transport
• Environmental health and social justice
• Responsible use of AI
• Neurourbanism
• Community healing

Climate change

Climate change clearly emerged as an area where a lot of projects have been launched but more needs to be done. Local effects of the extreme weather events require mitigation measures and adaptation strategies that looks at the people, the community and the economy at the same time. Nature-based urban ecosystems with optimized urban design could contribute to the solution.

Vector-borne diseases

Speaking about the impact of urbanization on the spread of vector-borne diseases, it was advised that better urbanization and housing regulation offered the opportunity to design out several diseases. This Lancet Commission focuses on how prevention of viruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes fits into the Healthy Cities, Healthy People movement. The goal is to create “Cities without Aedes.”

Migration & post-conflict reconstruction

Local and regional governments have become key actors in welcoming and housing the increasing number of migrants and refugees that arrive in urban areas. Migration has become the new normal in cities. More attention is required on the public health challenges associated with refugees in urban areas and on the settlement of refugees within the urban fabric rather than in separate refugee camps. Speakers also focused on the topic of post-conflict reconstruction, highlighting the need to include urban health in reconstruction plans.

Disaggregated data

The discussion elaborated on how granular data can help LRGs and policymakers prioritize interventions and investments. Disaggregated local data informs mayors about the real value of different policy options and actions. However, it was acknowledged that collecting data on health conditions and health care services in slums, for example in Africa, is challenging. Unregulated rapid urbanization, increasing poverty, and the sprawling of informal settlements impact negatively health outcomes.

Empowering local and regional governments

LRGs can also influence policy development and decision-making at the national and regional levels and therefore influence the shaping of the global housing and health agenda. Speakers shared their experiences on empowering local governments to implement integrated, community-driven housing and health solutions, and how cities can localize global climate and sustainability goals through practical, resilient urban policies. They explained the challenges of the health care delivery systems at multiple levels of government to address housing and other social determinants of urban health.

Local and regional governments are (and can be even more) important partners to develop rights-based solutions. Especially new and quickly growing cities can be built to design out important health challenges. A poll taken among the participants showed the need for more capacity building at the local level and the demand for high-quality disaggregated data which is not a given in the country-level statistics.

Which type of support do you consider the most critical to effectively address urban health challenges?

The Global Cities Hub was thrilled to host this inter-agency workshop that gave the opportunity for LRGs to be part of this future oriented policy-discussion from the beginning. Inclusive multilateralism is the best way forward to find the right solutions at the intersection of housing and urban health. Concrete examples, such as the development of a 15-minute city, urban superblocks or a low traffic neighbourhood, can serve as inspiration. Ongoing cooperations, such as the different city-networks supported by UN-Habitat and WHO, can bring tangible results for the citizens.

Thank you for the excellent line of speakers and the moderators:

• Graham Alabaster, UN-Habitat
• Nathalie Roebbel, WHO
• Nick Banatvala, UN Inter-Agency Task Force on NCDs
• Jo Ivey Boufford, New York University, USA
• Kobie Brand, ICLEI
• Jason Corburn, Berkley University, USA
• Allen G.K. Maina, UNHCR
• Blessing Mberu, Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi
• Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen, IS Global
• Andras Szorenyi, GCH
• Annelies Wilder-Smith, WHO

The GCH will organize an event on the occasion of the 2025 Heat Action Day “Cities Beat the Heat” on 27 May 2025. Read more and register here.

Video of the event