The Barcelona Institute for World Well being (ISGlobal) has unveiled a brand new software: the Wholesome City Design Index (HUDI). The HUDI is a composite index that evaluates 917 European cities primarily based on 13 indicators linked to peoples’ well being and well-being and divided into 4 domains: city design, sustainable transport, environmental high quality and inexperienced area accessibility.
The HUDI is the results of scientific work printed in The Lancet Planetary Well being. The information for all cities is publicly out there on https://isglobalranking.org/hudi/.
With a view to make the cities comparable, they’ve been grouped into 5 classes in keeping with the variety of inhabitants: giant metropolitan, metropolitan, medium and small-sized cities and small cities.
The 13 indicators assessed embrace city compactness, housing density, strolling, biking and public transport infrastructures, air air pollution ranges, capability to mitigate and handle warmth, and accessibility of inexperienced areas. The index assigns a rating between 0 and 10 for every of the symptoms analyzed and establishes a mixed HUDI rating.
Small cities lead the HUDI
Usually, the class with the best HUDI scores is small-sized cities, which incorporates all European cities with a inhabitants between 50,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. Pamplona (Spain), Geneva (Switzerland) and Harlow (UK), all small-sized cities, lead the HUDI scoring throughout all classes with scores of 6.8, 6.65 and 6.64, respectively.
“The HUDI rating variations are sometimes solely very small. Nevertheless, the HUDI exhibits tendencies and not one of the 917 cities achieves a rating of seven or increased out of 10, which provides us an concept of the room for enchancment in selling well being and well-being by means of city design in Europe,” explains Federica Montana, researcher at ISGlobal and lead creator of the examine.
Giant metropolitan cities usually scored higher on indicators of city design (housing density, compactness, mid-rise improvement and permeability) and sustainable transport (strolling and biking alternatives and variety of public transport stops), notably these in Northern Europe and a few in Spain.
In distinction, smaller cities present higher environmental high quality (air air pollution, inexperienced area and decrease city warmth island results), with increased scores on higher air high quality and warmth mitigation indicators, notably in Northern Europe.
Variations between Western and Japanese Europe
“One of many tendencies we noticed is that the bottom HUDI scores tended to be concentrated in Japanese European nations similar to Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. Conversely, it’s in Western European cities, with notable concentrations within the UK, Spain and Sweden that we discover the best scoring cities,” says Natalie Mueller, ISGlobal researcher and co-author of the examine.
Not a remaining rating
“The HUDI just isn’t supposed to be a remaining rating of cities, however slightly a primary method utilizing solely open spatial information to see how European cities of all sizes carry out and examine by way of offering a wholesome city design to their residents,” says Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, director of ISGlobal’s Local weather, Air Air pollution, Nature and City Well being program.
“Cities of comparable dimension typically face related challenges and alternatives and offering a excessive spatial decision of the symptoms and mixed HUDI scores may also help to pinpoint issues and develop focused intervention methods. Our HUDI is a piece in progress and we invite the analysis, city planning and coverage communities to develop this work additional sooner or later and make different related indicators out there,” Nieuwenhuijsen provides.
Prime cities by class
The cities with the very best HUDI scoring in every class are Madrid (Spain), with a rating of 6.04 in giant metropolitan cities; Lisbon (Portugal), with a rating of 6.09 in metropolitan cities; Bilbao (Spain), with a rating of 6.35, in medium-sized cities; Pamplona (Spain), with a rating of 6.8, in small-sized cities; and Campobasso (Italy), with a rating of 6.02, within the small cities cluster.
Methodology
The Wholesome City Design Index assesses 917 cities from 26 European nations, together with the UK, and it has been developed utilizing open information sources, together with distant sensing information, OpenStreetMap and EU and authorities open datasets.
The group outlined 13 indicators that scientific proof hyperlinks to bodily and/or psychological well being and grouped them into 4 key domains: city design, sustainable transport, environmental high quality and accessibility to inexperienced area. For every of the symptoms, a reference worth was outlined primarily based on earlier research or suggestions from specialists or worldwide organizations.
For instance, for the air air pollution indicators, the suggestions of the annual common values of particulate matter PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) established by the WHO had been used as a reference. For these indicators for which there was no reference worth, the worth of the town with the very best outcome was used as a reference.
As soon as the info for all of the cities had been obtained for every of the 13 indicators, they had been in contrast with the goal worth and transformed to a rating between 0 and 10 relying on the outcome. The HUDI scores had been calculated by making use of weights to the 13 indicators and had been subsequently used to rank cities inside their respective metropolis clusters.
The group hopes to enhance the HUDI sooner or later by together with different related indicators within the context of city well being, similar to socioeconomic indicators, transport modal share, or entry to and variety of providers and facilities.
“The usage of all open supply information is a crucial first step. We’re making the codes out there and hope that cities can use the proof to grasp the hyperlinks between city planning and well being. The HUDI helps cities not solely see the symptoms on the metropolis stage but additionally at excessive spatial decision, which is essential for fairness as there will be giant variations throughout neighborhoods,” says Carolyn Daher, co-author of the examine and coordinator of the ISGlobal City Planning, Atmosphere and Well being Initiative.
“The HUDI is a useful gizmo and likewise a name to motion for cities to take a look at the info and distributions, and use their very own information to validate findings, outline focused intervention methods, and contribute with higher information to enhance the symptoms and mapping within the close to future,” concludes Mueller.
Extra info:
Federica Montana, et al. Constructing a Wholesome City Design Index (HUDI): easy methods to promote well being and sustainability in European cities, The Lancet Planetary Well being (2025).
Directions for accessing the HUDI web site:
Quotation:
New index ranks 917 European cities on city design for well being and well-being (2025, June 11)
retrieved 12 June 2025
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