Health in cities
Opinion factsheet
On this page
- Agriculture, Maritime and Consumer policies
- Public health
Opinion number:
CDR-6620-2016
Status:
Adopted
Objective
The opinion is in line with the Commission programme, which affirms that healthcare is directly relevant to local and regional authorities, as it is rooted in the local area and has an immediate impact on living conditions in a city or region, whether large or small.
The objective is to participate, in conjunction with the European institutions, in a reflection process that may help to identify concrete policy proposals.
The wide range of issues that the opinion tackles (the globalisation of health, health determinants in metropolitan areas and big cities, population ageing, chronic conditions, the relationship between urbanisation and health), form the key points that may guide cities to study and further investigate health determinants in the urban and peri-urban environment and motivate them to devise strategies to improve the lifestyles and health of citizens.
The opinion will include the priority actions for achieving this objective, promoting public-private partnerships for implementing projects that will study the impact of determinants on health principally in the urban context.
The objective is to participate, in conjunction with the European institutions, in a reflection process that may help to identify concrete policy proposals.
The wide range of issues that the opinion tackles (the globalisation of health, health determinants in metropolitan areas and big cities, population ageing, chronic conditions, the relationship between urbanisation and health), form the key points that may guide cities to study and further investigate health determinants in the urban and peri-urban environment and motivate them to devise strategies to improve the lifestyles and health of citizens.
The opinion will include the priority actions for achieving this objective, promoting public-private partnerships for implementing projects that will study the impact of determinants on health principally in the urban context.
Essential points
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
notes that none of the 12 partnerships launched by the 2016 Pact of Amsterdam for the purposes of implementing the Urban Agenda is specifically dedicated to health and calls for the definition of health, health assessment and health promotion to be included in the Urban Agenda for the EU;
reiterates its support for the Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning and encourages designing transport and planning/land use policies that prioritise and make active mobility on foot or by bicycle safer and more attractive and also encourages multimodal public transport; requests to be included in the Coordinating Group of the European Platform on Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans;
reiterates its request – and its own commitment on this – for an increase in the budget of the LIFE Nature and Biodiversity programme after 2020 and calls for stronger support for initiatives at the local and regional level on climate adaptation in the European urban environment with a view to the 8th Environment Action Programme 2020-2027;
calls on the European Commission to strengthen the role of the municipalities and regions in pursuing better HEPA (health-enhancing physical activity) policies to encourage the taking up of physical activity in every area of the individual's life, from school to the workplace to leisure time and transport;
acknowledges the severe effects of the financial and economic crisis upon the capacity of public healthcare systems to deliver adequate services and recalls that ICTs can be a powerful tool for maintaining cost-efficient and high-quality health care, as they empower people of every age to better manage their health and quality of life, in urban and rural areas alike;
calls for more effective and responsive multilevel governance to improve health policy and design a fair, shared, harmonious urban system and suggest evaluating the benefits of establishing the post of a healthy city manager.