Implementing Healthy Urban Policy Workshop
At its most fundamental level, healthy cities research depends on partnerships between researchers, municipalities, and community organizations to identify needs and co-design projects to help address those needs. To support collaboration between city leaders and researchers, the CIHR Healthy Cities Research Initiative (HCRI) has launched two funding opportunities (2020, 2023) focused on implementing healthy urban policy. These grants support the co-development of activities related to implementing and evaluating interventions in urban settings to improve health and wellbeing.
A unique aspect of this funding call is the opportunity to participate in a five-day immersive workshop with teams composed of four city/community leaders and one researcher. The workshops are organized by 8 80 Cities, an innovative organization with the mission to ignite action and challenge the status quo to create healthier, more equitable, and sustainable cities for all people. Although the first workshop was held virtually due to the COVID-19 related travel restrictions, the upcoming workshop is scheduled to take place this Fall 2023 in Copenhagen and Malmo. The theme of this workshop is active transportation and public space. Teams will benefit from examining how this model city has designed, implemented and evaluated its active transportation and public space interventions and will draw on these learnings to develop action plans and intervention research ideas for their own Canadian cities. The workshop will explore the connection between improved health outcomes and well-designed, maintained and programmed parks, streets, bike lanes, schoolyards, plazas and other public spaces, and will emphasize opportunities for using data and research to continually monitor and improve infrastructure to meet the needs of people of all ages, abilities and socioeconomic backgrounds.
The HCRI, IMHA, and 8 80 Cities are in the process of coordinating a third Implementing Urban Policy Workshop focused on active transportation and public space, with plans for a workshop in Copenhagen in Fall 2024. Subscribe to the HCRI mailing list to be the first to know when this opportunity launches through an upcoming ICS Planning and Dissemination Grants competition!
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