September 18, 2025

On September 4-5, 2025, the Urban Health Collaborative (UHC) at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health hosted its first Urban Health Symposium since 2019. This symposium, which brought together over 200 researchers, practitioners, and policymakers focused on improving health outcomes in cities, was the fourth installment of the UHC’s signature event – the first taking place 10 years ago, in 2015.

Titled “Healthy Cities for the Next Decade: A Call to Action,” the event went beyond reflecting on recent trends and developments in the field. There was a clear and pervasive sense of urgency, with researchers and practitioners highlighting what solutions are needed to address persistent and emerging threats to urban health and health equity in the in the next 10 years. This sentiment began with a Pre-Symposium event hosted on September 3rd by our partners at SALURBAL-Climate, focused on the effects of climate change on the health of urban populations.

Our Symposium opened with a panel discussion between four leaders of health departments of cities across the US – Philadelphia, Kansas City, Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, NC, and Cleveland. All 4 members of the panel are also members of the Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC), a forum for leaders of major U.S. metropolitan health departments to share strategies and tackle public health challenges, which the UHC has a partnership with. Dr. David Margolius, of Cleveland, noted how his city holds the highest concentration of lead poisoning in the county – a finding from analyses conducted by the UHC and the BCHC. Dr. Raynard Washington, leading the Mecklenburg County Department of Health, recounted the outbreak of syphilis that affected his community. These stories don’t exist in silos, though, and the emphasis on collaboration and finding new ways to support resilience in communities for health equity was universal in the discussion.

Moving towards a future driven by collaboration for healthier cities calls for extensive research and action on the ground. Interspersed with discussions of public health policy were presentations given by urban health researchers with the aim to inform the actions needed to achieve the outcomes these leaders stressed the importance of. Top researchers from around the country and the world gave talks on novel data and methods in urban health, climate change affecting urban populations, and the impacts of policies and interventions at neighborhood level. In addition, attendees could attend a poster session and reception on the first day, which included over 35 exhibitions of innovative and novel research in urban health.

Attendees also heard keynote remarks from two speakers engaging in some of the most consequential policymaking in the field today: Dr. Mary T. Bassett, Director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights and FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Former Commissioner of both the New York State and New York City Departments of Health, ; and Dr. Michelle Morse, Acting Commissioner of Health, City of New York Internist & Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Each spoke of the implicitly political nature of urban health, which has unfortunately become even more pronounced in recent years, and the role that equity and structural drivers play in affecting health in communities.

The 2025 Urban Health Symposium wasn’t just a gathering of minds working to improve health in cities – it was a celebration. A celebration of the work that’s brought the growth we’ve seen in the field over the years, of the resilience of those pursuing equitable health outcomes in communities, and a celebration of 10 years of the UHC. We look forward to hosting again two years from now, in 2027!

Looking To Join The Conversation? 

We’re hosting the first Invited Speaker Series of the 2025-2026 calendar this fall with Edward Wile Maibach, distinguished University Professor and Director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication (Mason 4C). It will be taking place at 11 am on Wednesday, on October 29th, in 751 in Nesbitt Hall. Open to Drexel Dornsife students, faculty, and staff! 

Register On Zoom