Philadelphia, USA, October 27, 2022

Over 25 members of the SALURBAL project convened in Valencia, Spain for the October 2022 International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH), “Growing Our Global Community. Driving Action. Ensuring Equity.” Throughout the week, SALURBAL team members presented on over five years of research exploring the ways urban environments and policies affect health, wellbeing, and equity in cities across Latin America.

Team members delivered nearly 20 traditional abstract presentations and organized three panel discussions at ICUH 2022. Topics included maternal and child health, gender-sensitive health impact evaluations, income segregation and mortality, inequalities in life expectancy, policy and community engagement strategies, physical activity and transport interventions, and healthy food environments.

Ana Diez Roux, SALURBAL’s Principal Investigator, moderated the conference plenary, “Making it Happen,” where speakers reflected on strategies for catalyzing the transformation of urban health evidence into urban interventions and policy change.

 
See here for a complete list of the SALURBAL team’s contributions to this year’s ICUH.

Lead project investigators also participated in a panel featuring the Wellcome Trust-funded Our Planet, Our Health Urban Research Partnerships. Representatives from SALURBAL and other projects discussed challenges and shared lessons related to building transdisciplinary and multi-country research collaborations worldwide.

On the evening of Tuesday October 25, SALURBAL organized an informal side and social event. Over 50 project researchers, collaborators, and other conference participants gathered to discuss four core elements of the SALURBAL project: 1) Data harmonization and the project data resource; 2) Key project findings; 3) Policy evaluation studies; and 4) Organizational lessons and challenges for creating and sustaining a multi-country research team. Small groups reflected on specific project results, challenges, strategies developed, and next steps.   

See a full list of the SALURBAL team’s contributions to this year’s conference contributions here. The SALURBAL Project also co-hosted last year’s International Conference on Urban Health with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) - See more here.