Policies to implement climate-forcing pollution emission reductions have often been stymied by economic and political divisiveness. However, certain uncontested nonregret public health policies that also carry climate-forcing cobenefits with them could provide more achievable policy pathways to accelerate the implementation of climate mitigation. An International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Policy Committee endorsed pre-28th Conference of the Parties climate meeting workshop brought together experts on environment, diet, civic planning, and health to review current understanding of public health policy approaches that provide climate change mitigation cobenefits by also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Promising public health policy areas identified as also providing climate mitigation cobenefits included: improving air quality through stronger regulation of harmful combustion-related air pollutants, advancing healthier plant-based public food procurement programs, promoting more sustainable transport options, developing healthier infrastructure (e.g., combustion-free buildings), and reducing the use of climate forcing substances in healthcare. It is concluded that cities, states, and nations, when aided by involved health professionals, can advance many practical public health, diet, and civic planning policies to improve health and well-being that will also serve to translate climate mitigation ambitions into action.

Despite synergies between action for air pollution and action for health, climate and social wellbeing in cities, siloed thinking and the “wicked” nature of urban air pollution limit optimal decision-making. Systems approaches offer opportunities to identify barriers and opportunities for action towards cleaner air, and to bolster solutions that optimize benefits and limit unintended consequences. Structured decision-making was adapted into participatory workshops as an engagement tool to develop systems insights into the barriers and opportunities for clean air action. 24 participants from 15 countries and a mix of non-governmental organizations, academia, public and private sectors partook in an online workshop. The aim was to understand the synergies and conflicts between stakeholders, and to identify the actions that stakeholders believe are feasible and provide co-benefits for climate, health and social wellbeing. Workshops identified “human health and wellbeing”, “equity” and “planetary health and climate” as shared objectives that drive stakeholders’ work. Participants developed over 100 actions to address these objectives. Highlights included the importance of transport and data related solutions, including air quality monitoring, modelling, and transparency. Stakeholders identified collaboration and integrated approaches as co-beneficial, yet they didn’t consider these particularly feasible. We identified a gap between the call for systems approaches and the evidence on how to implement systems thinking in decision-making practice. Structured decision-making enabled co-production and evaluation of objectives and actions, and promoted cross-sectoral networking between participants. It offers potential as a novel tool for engaging stakeholders and integrating systems insights and multisectoral perspectives into solutions to complex “wicked” problems.

We discuss how epidemiology has been and can continue to be used to advance understanding of the links between urban areas and health informed by an existing urban-health conceptual framework. This framework considers urban areas as contexts for health, determinants of health and modifiers of health pathways, and part of a complex system that affects health. We highlight opportunities for descriptive epidemiology to inform the context of urban health, for example, by characterizing the social and physical environments that give rise to health and the actions that change those conditions. We then describe inferential tools for evaluating the impact of group-level actions (e.g., interventions, policies) on urban health, providing some examples, and describing assumptions and challenges. Finally, we discuss opportunities and challenges of applying systems thinking and methods to advance urban health. While different conceptual frames lead to different insights, each perspective demonstrates that urban health is a major and growing challenge. The effectiveness of urban health knowledge, action, and policy as the world continues to urbanize can be informed by applying and expanding upon research and surveillance methods described here.

Reliable and accurate reconstruction for large-scale and complex physical fields in real-time from limited observations has been a longstanding challenge. In recent years, sensors have been increasingly deployed in numerous physical systems. However, the locations of these sensors can shift over time, such as with mobile sensors, or when sensors are deployed and removed. These sparse and randomly located sensors further exacerbate the difficulty of reconstructing the physical field. In this paper, we present a new deep learning model called Vision Transformer-based Autoencoder (ViTAE) for reconstructing large-scale and complex fields. The proposed network structure is based on a novel core design: vision transformer encoder and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) decoder. First, we split a two-dimensional field into patches and developed a vision transformer encoder to transfer patches into latent representations. We then reshape the linear latent representations to patches before concatenation, along with a CNN decoder, to reconstruct the field. The proposed model is tested in four different numerical experiments, using generated synthetic data, spatially distributed PM2.5 data, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation data and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sea surface temperature data. The numerical results highlight the strength of ViTAE-SL compared to Kriging and state-of-the-art deep-learning models with significantly higher reconstruction accuracy, computational efficiency, and robust scaling behavior.

We discuss how epidemiology has been and can continue to be used to advance understanding of the links between urban areas and health informed by an existing urban-health conceptual framework. This framework considers urban areas as contexts for health, determinants of health and modifiers of health pathways, and part of a complex system that affects health. We highlight opportunities for descriptive epidemiology to inform the context of urban health, for example, by characterizing the social and physical environments that give rise to health and the actions that change those conditions. We then describe inferential tools for evaluating the impact of group-level actions (e.g., interventions, policies) on urban health, providing some examples, and describing assumptions and challenges. Finally, we discuss opportunities and challenges of applying systems thinking and methods to advance urban health. While different conceptual frames lead to different insights, each perspective demonstrates that urban health is a major and growing challenge. The effectiveness of urban health knowledge, action, and policy as the world continues to urbanize can be informed by applying and expanding upon research and surveillance methods described here.

Purpose: Active transportation (AT) offers a sustainable means of enhancing daily physical activity and mitigating transportation-related pollution. Leveraging mobile health (mhealth) technology can be a valuable tool to promote AT behavior. However, existing interventions often lack evidence-based behavior change techniques and rarely involve potential end-users in the development process. This study aims to explore the promotion of AT through mhealth interventions using a participatory approach. Methods: We conducted online concept mapping sessions with residents of the Alpes-Maritimes Department in France. Participants engaged in brainstorming, sorting, and rating of ideas related to app features designed to encourage AT. We employed multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis to visualize the participants' collective conceptual thinking on this subject. Data was stratified by participant demographics, including age, education, and typical mode of transportation. Results: Participants collectively generated 44 ideas perceived as useful to fostering AT behaviors. These ideas formed six main concepts, ranked by efficiency to encourage AT as follows: Infrastructure (n = 9 ideas), Itinerary (n = 9), Contact with government (n = 4); Data (n = 12); App usability (n = 6); and Legislation and code of conduct (n = 4). Conclusions: The study highlights the pivotal role of infrastructure in fostering AT. Travelers could also be effectively engaged through app features such as tailored information on the presence and quality of AT infrastructure, hybrid multimodal journey planning, and time and cost savings by different travel modes. Engaging with local governments via the app is identified as a novel and promising approach to AT promotion. Indications of specific tailoring opportunities for different demographic groups need to be further investigated.

Incorporating active transportation (AT), such as walking and cycling, into daily routines is a promising solution for meeting the World Health Organization’s physical activity recommendations and contributes to reducing the risk of many noncommunicable diseases. Smartphone apps offer versatile platforms for embedding health behavior promotion strategies to encourage AT. This scoping review aimed to provide an overview of how mobile apps are being used to promote AT through reviews of the academic literature and commercial app stores. We searched six academic databases (Embase, Medline, Web of Science, PsychINFO, Transport Database, and Google Scholar) for academic literature. The literature was included if it presented a developed app to promote AT behaviors. AT promotion strategies and theories were extracted and analyzed for their impact on changing behaviors and behavioral intentions toward AT. Commercial apps were searched in two app stores (the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store) across six countries, one per continent. Apps were included if they promoted and encouraged AT behavior. We evaluated the apps on the basis of user engagement and their quality and potential to change behaviors, as assessed via the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) and the App Behavior Change Scale (ABACUS). The academic literature search identified 38 articles, presenting 29 apps. All the studies that evaluated behavioral intentions reported success in raising awareness and changing behavioral intentions. A promising strategy to motivate behavior involves providing multiple relevant feedback (calories burned, money saved, time saved, and CO2/particulate matter emissions) on behavioral impacts alongside action plans (route recommendations and personalized travel plans). Only two apps from the literature search were publicly available. The commercial app search identified 78 apps. Apps with high-quality engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information presented greater user engagement than those that did not; therefore, they were more likely to succeed. Mobile apps have great potential to motivate changes and be part of a comprehensive system to promote AT. Given the rapid growth of app-based interventions, leveraging mobile apps to encourage AT warrants further exploration. Upon development, these apps should be maintained and made publicly accessible.

In this article, we summarise recent developments, identify gaps, and propose a research agenda for quantitative health impact assessment (HIA) of environmental exposures linked to urban transport and land use. This is based on a workshop of 30 experts, complemented by targeted literature identified by participants to illustrate the state of research and practice gaps. The practice of quantitative HIA in urban transport and land use interventions covers a diverse range of methods, models, and frameworks. The selection of an appropriate model depends upon the use case, i.e., the research question, resources and expertise, and application. The plurality of models can be a strength if differences are explicit and their implications are understood. A major gap in most assessments and frameworks is the lack of equity consideration. This should be integrated into all stages of the HIA, considering exposures, susceptibility, disease burden, capacity to benefit, household budgets, responsibility for harm, and participation in the process. Scenarios of environmental exposures in urban transport and land use interventions are often overly simple, while the scenario design process of spatial planning is often opaque. Researchers should specify the involvement of stakeholders and the data, evidence, or behavioural model used to construct the scenario. Recent developments in exposure assessment (remote sensing and modelling) have increased the capacity to conduct HIAs for small geographies at scale. At the same time, advances in simulation have enabled the representation of behaviours at high spatial and temporal resolution. The combination can enable person-centric measures accounting for location, activities, and behaviours, with HIA proceeding ahead of epidemiology. Most HIAs still use Comparative Risk Assessment. This is suitable for estimating the disease burdens of environmental exposures, but more advanced longitudinal methods are better suited for studying interventions. Beyond health outcomes, well-being must be incorporated. The monetisation of health outcomes through welfare economics remains contentious. Representation of uncertainty is increasingly acknowledged. Value of Information methods can inform where new data collection would most efficiently reduce final result uncertainty. In the context of the climate crisis and related environmental limits, methods are needed that consider adaptation alongside mitigation and prevention and test robustness to an increasingly unstable future.

Accessibility models explore how land use and transport systems interact to facilitate access to activities and daily needs. Existing applications generally model accessibility based on distance or travel time. For pedestrians and cyclists, the street-level environment (e.g., green visibility, streetside amenities, dedicated infrastructure) significantly influences people's willingness and ability to travel. Incorporating these features into accessibility models can help them to be more representative of active travellers' experienced environment.This study presents a methodology for incorporating the street-level environment into active mode accessibility. First, micro-scale built environment data from multiple sources are harmonised into a high-resolution digital representation of the land use and transport system. Second, a compute-optimised framework is developed for modelling accessibility at the micro-scale (i.e., each dwelling separately) incorporating the street-level environment. The methods build upon the open geodatabase OpenStreetMap and open-source MATSim project, facilitating expandability and transferability to other contexts. We apply this methodology to develop policy-relevant accessibility indicators for Greater Manchester.In the results, we observe that the street-level environment can cause accessibility indicators to vary at the micro-scale, especially in less connected neighbourhoods where the choice of routes is limited. We also observed that for cyclists, the accessibility advantage over walking reduces substantially when traffic stress is considered. Our findings support further adoption of micro-scale built environment data and high-resolution analysis methods for active travel accessibility modelling in research and practice.

Personal exposure to air pollution can originate from indoor or outdoor sources, depending on location and activity. This study aimed to quantify personal exposure from each source separately, allowing comparison of the associated epidemiological estimates from each source type. We utilised 12,901 participant-day personal measurements of exposure to multiple pollutants collected from 344 London dwelling participants of four panel studies conducted between 2015 and 2019. A four-step process was applied to personal measurements incorporating 1) GPS spatial analysis including address identification and location tagging; 2) estimating outdoor home pollutant levels from matched fixed ambient monitors; 3) calculation of infiltration efficiency when participants were at home; and 4) indoor and outdoor source separation for personal exposure measurements. From the results, our participants with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) dataset had an average (SD) personal exposure from outdoor sources of 4.0 (1.3) μg/m3 for NO2 and 5.1 (3.0) μg/m3 for PM2.5, the school children's average (SD) personal exposure to PM2.5 from outdoor sources was 5.5 (4.3) μg/m3, the professional drivers' average (SD) personal exposure to black carbon from outdoor sources was 1.7 (1.0) μg/m3, and the healthy young adults' average (SD) personal exposure to black carbon from outdoor sources was 1.2 (0.5) μg/m3. Compared to the average total personal exposures, outdoor sources accounted for 49 % of NO2 exposure, 41 % to 55 % of PM2.5, and 60 % to 85 % of black carbon, dependent on the panel study - demonstrating a strong influence from outdoor sources for personal exposures to air pollution in London. Our findings highlighted that endeavours should continue to be made towards reducing pollution from both outdoor and indoor sources. The between-panel and within-panel exposure differences, derived from our novel partitioning methodology, can contribute to the estimation of health effects from indoor and outdoor sources and inform targeted interventions for vulnerable groups.

Introduction: Urban mobility can detrimentally impact city dwellers' health and quality of life, e.g. through air pollution, noise and traffic injuries, but offers opportunities for health promotion, e.g., through active travel. While the health impacts of transport are well known, the extent to which health is considered in mobility plans is less obvious. The European Commission encourages cities to develop Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to improve residents' quality of life. We assess how health is addressed in SUMPs by examining: i) key health and health equity terminology, ii) explicit transport pathways to health, iii) health targets and key performance indicators, and iv) the health-rationale of actions and measures. Methods: Using a customised health dictionary, we perform a quantitative text analysis of SUMPs issued from 2006 to 2023 (n = 230) from 31 European countries listed on the European Local Transport Information Service (Eltis) City Database. We further validate this by an in-depth qualitative analysis of a purposive sub-sample (n = 13). Results: The findings show that while the prominence of health in SUMPs seems to be increasing, the link between transport and equity, and social and mental wellbeing is not frequently discussed. Detailed targets and KPIs for several health pathways are scarce or missing, as are the health rationale and health outcomes for proposed measures. Overwhelmingly SUMPs' health aspirations focus on minimising detrimental health impacts of transport, primarily from traffic injuries and to a lesser extent from air pollution. Health related concepts such as accessibility and active travel feature prominently but are not explicitly identified as an opportunity to enhance health. Conclusion: Urban mobility planning across Europe seems to miss an opportunity to embrace mobility as a driver of health promotion.

Epidemiological studies on health effects of air pollution usually estimate exposure at the residential address. However, ignoring daily mobility patterns may lead to biased exposure estimates, as documented in previous exposure studies. To improve the reliable integration of exposure related to mobility patterns into epidemiological studies, we conducted a systematic review of studies across all continents that measured air pollution concentrations in various modes of transport using portable sensors. To compare personal exposure across different transport modes, specifically active versus motorized modes, we estimated pairwise exposure ratios using a Bayesian random-effects meta-analysis. Overall, we included measurements of six air pollutants (black carbon (BC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) and ultrafine particles (UFP)) for seven modes of transport (i.e., walking, cycling, bus, car, motorcycle, overground, underground) from 52 published studies. Compared to active modes, users of motorized modes were consistently the most exposed to gaseous pollutants (CO and NO2). Cycling and walking were the most exposed to UFP compared to other modes. Active vs passive mode contrasts were mostly inconsistent for other particle metrics. Compared to active modes, bus users were consistently more exposed to PM10 and PM2.5, while car users, on average, were less exposed than pedestrians. Rail modes experienced both some lower exposures (compared to cyclists for PM10 and pedestrians for UFP) and higher exposures (compared to cyclist for PM2.5 and BC). Ratios calculated for motorcycles should be considered carefully due to the small number of studies, mostly conducted in Asia. Computing exposure ratios overcomes the heterogeneity in pollutant levels that may exist between continents and countries. However, formulating ratios on a global scale remains challenging owing to the disparities in available data between countries.

The negative impacts of global climate change are well-known, but the health benefits of climate mitigation actions and their high monetary valuations are less appreciated. Actions to reduce the use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy production, industry, transportation, and agriculture will also bring major benefits to public health (see Figure 1).1 Economic benefits from health care savings and improved population health can far exceed the cost of climate mitigation measures. Cities, regions, and countries that implement climate change mitigation actions will gain immediate and long-term economic benefits of these health improvements.Figure 1.: Health benefits of climate change actions.Climate action cobenefit 1: healthier air to breathe Reducing the use of fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy improves air quality. Fine particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide are harmful air pollutants originating from fossil fuel combustion. Air pollution is a major environmental hazard that contributes to 6.7 million premature deaths per year,2 and to multiple debilitating diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, chronic and infectious respiratory diseases, type 2 diabetes, lung cancer, and dementia. The value of health savings from improving air quality to limit global warming to 1.5–2 °C by 2050 outweighs the implementation costs by a factor of 1.4 to 2.45.3 The averted premature mortality from air pollution reductions will produce annual monetized benefits in the hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few decades, rising to several trillion annually at the end of the century.4 The air quality benefits of climate mitigation are immediate, and those living in regions that reduce fossil fuel combustion will experience not only immediate improvements in air quality but also a significant reduction in associated health risks. Climate action cobenefit 2: increased energy security Switching to renewable energy sources can increase energy security. Energy access, health, and well-being are all inextricably linked. Energy is required for cooking, lighting, heating, cooling, housekeeping, and medical care-related activities, including life-sustaining medical devices. Nonetheless, 733 million people lack access to reliable electricity and cannot adequately meet their energy needs–3 in 4 are in Sub-Saharan Africa.5 Lack of access to electricity and high energy costs forces many households to rely on heating and cooking equipment and fuels that impair indoor air quality. Household air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer, causing an estimated 3.2 million deaths annually.6 Additionally, about one billion people worldwide rely on health facilities that lack reliable access to electricity.7 Limited access to energy has a negative impact on the operational efficacy of healthcare facilities and the quality, accessibility, and dependability of services provided. Local renewable energy sources such as solar mini-grids8 improve energy access for households and healthcare facilities, provide jobs, improve air quality, and support the health of communities. Climate action cobenefit 3: healthier food Changing food production to more climate-friendly foods provides significant human health benefits, especially by transitioning away from meat-centric diets. Livestock raised for animal-based food accounts for about 14.5% of global human-induced GHG emissions, mainly from methane, a potent GHG emitted by ruminant animals (cattle, sheep, and goats).9 Methane is also an ozone precursor. Ozone air pollution contributes to respiratory illnesses and loss of crops. For example, in 2015, estimated wheat production losses for Europe due to ozone pollution were 23.8 million tons, greater than Ukraine’s annual production.10 The transformation of land for livestock farming is causing a rapid decline in carbon sinks—the terrestrial biosphere absorbs 30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.11 Importantly, meat consumption contributes to poor health, including risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.12 Plant-based sources of protein (e.g., legumes, peanuts, soybeans, chickpeas, and lentils) are healthier and contain less saturated fat.13 Transitioning meat production to plant-based proteins would rapidly slow global warming by cutting methane and would also improve health. Climate action cobenefit 4: healthier cities and transportation systems Cities account for 70% of the global GHG emissions and are therefore a crucial target for climate change mitigation actions.14 Transportation accounts for nearly a quarter of all man-made CO2 emissions worldwide.15 Most (95%) of the energy used for transportation still comes from fossil fuels, representing 57% of global oil demand and 28% of total energy consumption.15 Traffic harms health in multiple ways.16 Emissions from trucks, cars and buses are among the largest sources of deadly air pollution in high- and low-income countries.17 Tailpipe emissions cause more than 7.8 million years of life lost and $1 trillion in health damages per year.18 Transportation noise is the second leading environmental stressor after air pollution, causing annoyance, sleep disturbance, and cardio-metabolic diseases.19 Additionally, motorized commutes are a missed opportunity for commuters to engage in physical activity.14 More than a quarter of the world population is insufficiently active, contributing to more than 7% of premature deaths globally and accounting for more than $50 billion in health care costs.20 While current transportation schemes generate air pollution, noise, and heat and contribute to the urban heat island in cities,21 green space attenuates these harmful exposures and can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. When space currently occupied by cars is repurposed for public green spaces, it can promote outdoor physical activity, improve air quality, reduce noise and enhance mental well-being and social cohesion.14 Climate change action can promote health through a redesign of cities and transport networks, encouraging shifts away from polluting vehicles and traffic, and improving accessibility to goods and services (including healthcare) in cities, while dedicating more space to health-enhancing land uses such as greenspace, walking and cycling. Take-away message Climate action will improve health by providing cleaner air, energy security, healthier foods, sustainable and active transportation, and building more walkable, inclusive and livable cities and communities. Applying an equity lens in all these policies is essential to ensure equitable access and distribution of the many health benefits of climate action. Climate change mitigation policies must consider the health benefits of action. This commentary was written by the Policy Committee of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE). We thank all the committee members for their valuable comments.

BACKGROUND:Emerging evidence points to the beneficial role of greenspace exposure in promoting cardiovascular health. Most studies have evaluated such associations with conventional cardiovascular endpoints such as mortality, morbidity, or macrovascular markers. In comparison, the microvasculature, a crucial compartment of the vascular system where early subclinical signs of cardiovascular problems appear, has not been studied in association with greenspace exposure. The current study assessed the association between surrounding greenness and microvascular status, as assessed by retinal vessel diameters. METHODS:This study included a sample of healthy adults (n = 114 and 18-65 years old) residing in three European cities [Antwerp (Belgium), Barcelona (Spain), and London (UK)]. The exposures to greenspace at the home and work/school locations were characterized as average surrounding greenness [normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)] within buffers of 100 m, 300 m, and 500 m. The central retinal arteriolar equivalent (CRAE) and central retinal venular equivalent (CRVE) were calculated from fundus pictures taken at three different time points. We developed linear mixed-effect models to estimate the association of greenspace exposure with indicators of retinal microvasculature, adjusted for relevant individual and area-level covariates. RESULTS:We observed the most robust associations with CRVE. Higher levels of greenspace at work/school were associated with smaller retinal venules [(seasonal NDVI) 300m: 3.85, 95%CI -6.67,-1.03; 500m: 5.11, 95%CI -8.04, -2.18]. Findings for surrounding greenness and CRAE were not conclusive. CONCLUSION:Our study suggests an association of greenspace exposure with better microvascular status, specifically for retinal venules. Future research is needed to confirm our findings across different contextual settings.

Abstract Purpose Urban mobility can have detrimental impacts on health and quality of life, but can also be an opportunity for health promotion, e.g. through walking and cycling. While health impacts of transport are well known, the extent to which health is considered in mobility plans is less obvious. European cities are strongly encouraged to develop Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). Methods We assess the extent to which health is reflected in SUMPs in cities, with regards to: i) key health and health equity terminology, ii) how explicit transport pathways to health are made, and iii) whether health is operationalised into targets and key performance indicators (KPIs) and iv) how well elaborated the health-rationale of various actions and measures is . We analysed the latest SUMPs in the Eltis City database of urban mobility plans with a quantitative text analysis, supported by the development of a health dictionary and a policy analysis checklist. We carried out a qualitative analysis of a purposive sub-sample to verify the validity of the quantitative approach and provide further nuance to the assessment. Results 230 SUMPS (2006-2023) from 31 countries were usable for quantitative analysis, from which 13 were included into qualitative analysis, reflecting a range of city sizes, countries, and focus on health. The findings show that while health is often touched upon, and its prominence seems to be increasing, SUMPs miss out on the opportunity to embrace mobility as a driver of health promotion. The link between transport and equity and social and mental wellbeing is not frequently discussed. Detailed targets and KPIs for several health pathways are scarce or missing, as are the health rationale and outcomes for proposed measures. Health aspirations are concerned with minimising detrimental impacts of transport on health, primarily from traffic injuries and to a lesser extent from air pollution. Concepts such as accessibility and active travel feature prominently but are not explicitly identified as an opportunity to enhance health. Conclusions Urban mobility planning across Europe miss an opportunity to embrace health as a means to engage across sectors and society to help promote transformative urban sustainability policies.

IntroductionCurrent urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects.MethodsWe used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms.ResultsThe implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities.ConclusionThe Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors.

Few studies have considered the real-world impact of changes in traffic signal timings on air pollution and pedestrian exposure with most only drawing their conclusion from vehicle emission models alone. Here, we consider two distinct cycle timings at a junction in London, UK, model the impact using a traffic microsimulation and a NOx emissions model, and compare these results with NOx and other air pollution measurements collected during a two-week field study at the junction.Our models predict that extending the cycle time leads to a 23% decrease in NOx emissions within a 15 m radius of the junction itself. When the wind direction was such that our sensors were downwind of the junction a 21% decrease in traffic and background-adjusted NOx concentrations were seen, suggesting that the intervention was successful. However, when the sensors were upwind of the junction, we observed an increase of 23% in adjusted NOx concentrations. Similar patterns were found for the other pollutants NO2, lung deposited surface area, black carbon and CO2 we measured. This indicates that meteorology was by far the greatest determinant of roadside concentrations during our two-week study period.Looking at pedestrian exposure for pedestrians waiting to cross the road, we found that their NOx exposure increased by 46% as waiting times to cross the road increased and that potential small reductions in air pollution were offset by increases in waiting times on the main road.The study demonstrates the need to go beyond assessing the impact of hyper-local traffic interventions on vehicle emissions. Real-world trials over extended periods are required to evaluate the impact of meteorology and changes to air pollution concentrations and pedestrian exposures.

ABSTRACT Background Promoting active modes of transportation such as cycling may generate important public health, economic, and climate mitigation benefits. We aim to assess mortality and morbidity impacts of cycling in a country with relatively low levels of cycling, France, along with associated monetary benefits; we further assess the potential additional benefits of shifting a portion of short trips from cars to bikes, including projected greenhouse gas emissions savings. Methods Using individual data from a nationally-representative mobility survey, we described the French 2019 cycling levels by age and sex. We conducted a burden of disease analysis to assess the incidence of five chronic diseases (breast cancer, colon cancer, cardio-vascular diseases, dementia, and type-2 diabetes) and numbers of deaths prevented by cycling, based on national incidence and mortality data and dose-response relationships from meta-analyses. We assessed the corresponding direct medical cost savings and the intangible costs prevented based on the value of a statistical life year. Lastly, based on individual simulations, we assessed the likely additional benefits of shifting 25% of short (<5km) car trips were shifted to cycling. Findings The French adult (20-89 years) population was estimated to cycle on average of 1min 17sec pers - 1 .day - 1 in 2019, with important heterogeneity across gender and age. This yielded benefits of 1,919 (uncertainty interval, UI: 1,101-2,736) premature deaths and 5,963 (UI: 3,178-8,749) chronic disease cases prevented, with males enjoying nearly 75% of these benefits. Direct medical costs prevented were estimated at €191 million (UI: 98-285) annually, while the corresponding intangible costs were nearly 25 times higher (€4.8 billion, UI: 3.0-6.5). We estimated that in average, €1.02 (UI: 0.59-1.62) of intangible costs were prevented for every km cycled. Shifting 25% of short car trips to biking would yield approximatively a 2-fold increase in death prevented, while also generating important CO 2 emission reductions (0.257 MtCO2e, UI: 0.231-0.288). Interpretation In a country of low- to moderate cycling culture, cycling already generates important public health and health-related economic benefits. Further development of active transportation would increase these benefits while also contributing to climate change mitigation targets. Funding This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

In the field of large-scale field reconstruction, Kriging has been a commonly used technique for spatial interpolation at unobserved locations. However, Kriging’s effectiveness is often restricted when dealing with non-Gaussian or non-stationary real-world fields, and it can be computationally expensive. On the other hand, supervised deep learning models can potentially address these limitations by capturing underlying patterns between observations and corresponding fields. In this study, we introduce a novel deep learning model that utilizes vision transformers and autoencoders for large-scale field reconstruction. The new model is named ViTAE. The proposed model is designed specifically for large-scale and complex field reconstruction. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of ViTAE over Kriging. Additionally, the proposed ViTAE model runs more than 1000 times faster than Kriging, enabling real-time field reconstructions.