Towards healthy cities

Roel Vermeulen

Press/Media: Expert Comment

Description

‘Science more in tune with policy’

With Utrecht mayor Jan van Zanen looking on, Utrecht University recently

concluded an agreement with the universities of Hong Kong and Toronto.

The institutions agreed on a partnership in conducting research into‘healthy cities’.

The signing of the agreement triggered Illuster to take up the matter with

Associate Professor Roel Vermeulen, who will be directing proceedings with

regard to the life sciences component of the partnership and Utrecht alderman

Lot van Hooijdonk, entrusted with environmental issues on behalf of the city.

Many threats to public health exist

in an urbanised region such as the

Netherlands, e.g. air pollution, high

temperatures and noise. Vermeulen:

“The average citizen should take extra care of his

health. But he can’t do it alone. Local government

must come to his aid. Does your city sufficiently

stimulate a healthy lifestyle, exercise and moving

outdoors? Does it offer sufficient opportunities for

cyclists and pedestrians? Are there enough green

spaces to go round?”

Policy Supported by Science

Van Hooijdonk adds another reason why local

government should contribute to public health

in the city: “Busy, bustling cities

with lots of traffic can create a lot

of stress. As a local government

we need to do something about

that. Research has shown that

cycling, for instance, is always

the better transport option.

Even if the down-town air in

your city is polluted, or if you

account for road accidents —

with the cyclists obviously always the more vulnerable

party — taking your bike over the car is still the wiser

choice. The health benefits to cycling are so huge,

they heavily outweigh the disadvantages. We have

been made aware of this by research conducted by

Utrecht University and we can now use that

knowledge in our urban planning. We’re putting

these kinds of questions, e.g. about the health effects

of certain policies, about the city experience, to the

knowledge institutes in our area, i.e. not just the

university, but also the National Institute for Public

Health and the Environment (rivm) or the hu

University of Applied Sciences Utrecht.”

Van Hooijdonk is aware of Utrecht’s improved

public health over recent years. “And that figure’s

improving year on year, partly because of what the

national and local government are doing, e.g. issuing

tax rebates for cleaner cars and purchasing cleaner

buses or introducing the green zone. But several

tough issues still need to be tackled. The new 130 kmh

speed limit on some of the motorways, for instance,

isn’t really helping. It’s near motorways that we see

the biggest problems arise in terms of air quality.”

Vermeulen: “Utrecht’s aim with respect to air

quality is to meet the World Health Organization

(who) standard, one much stricter than the national

or eu standard. The who standard is one backed

by science. And it is

interesting to see that the

most progressive political

approaches tend to be the

local ones instead of the

national ones.”

Similar Cities

“The idea behind teaming

up with Hong Kong and

Toronto is that we want to be able to quantify what

it is people are exposed to,” the environmental

epidemiologist continues. “The partnership is as much

a technical one — e.g. how to develop sensors for

measuring air quality, or apps that can register where

people are and what their health experience looks like

— as it is one on content, e.g. how do different factors

that affect health relate to each other? The thing is that

we know that a healthy diet, not smoking, clean air

and the like contribute to good health, but how these

relate or even correlate, we know too little about still.

And being able to do that from a comparative

perspective, as the differences between the

participating cities are vast, is exciting.”

Van Hooijdonk: “Comparing cities in this way,

I’m sure, will yield many new insights. But even in

Utrecht we are able to point to lots of differences.

Even though we all live in the same city, people in

Overvecht differ from those living in next door

Tuindorp in terms of their health. Something like

that implies that health not only has a physical, but

also a social component. To me, cities such as Toronto

or Hong Kong appear a bit too metropolitan to allow

a good comparison with Utrecht; we’re looking out

for a comparison with so-called similar cities, e.g.

we’re in touch with traffic officials in Portland, usa,

and we’re very interested in how the Belgian city of

Ghent is evolving its ‘living street’ concept, or how

Vancouver is approaching urban compaction.

We ourselves have also gained national interest with

our ‘Better diet, more exercise’ programme in

Overvecht.”

Health and Well-Being

Van Hooijdonk also points to other benefits

to a healthy city policy, in that respect also envisaging

a role for science: “Being able to explain to people that

city traffic affects air quality and causes noise pollution

isn’t all that hard. But convincing people of the added

freedom of riding your bike to town is a bit trickier.

But what about all those kids in the US who have to

sit around waiting to take their driving test to finally

cast the shackles of parental oversight from them.

In Holland kids get up and about on their bikes as early

as the age of twelve. Plus the bicycle brings people

back to the street theatre. You can actually see the

people, instead of having to look at the machines they

drive themselves around in. That too, is a contributing

factor to the quality of urban living. The measures

you have to take to promote things like this are often

intuitive and hard to explain to people.”

That is one of the things international

collaboration will help to further, according to

Vermeulen: “Knowledge institutes are looking to

increasingly team up with cities to better understand

their inner workings. You can ‘monitor’ lots of things,

which will allow you to quickly gauge the effect a

particular policy. That’s the story we want to bring

to the fore. And this doesn’t merely concern death

and disease, it also concerns well-being. And that is

where our partnership with Toronto and Hong Kong

can come in. It allows us to take a more integrated

approach and initiate research that has the potential

to directly affect policy. What intervention options

do we have at our disposal? How do the factors relate

and correlate? I.e. we don’t just limit ourselves to

asking: What are the health effects? We’re now

allowing science to become more in tune with policy

UU Central Towards healthy cities

––

Lot van Hooijdonk is the Utrecht city alderman for Traffic &

Mobility, Energy and the Environment. As a member of the

Green Party (GroenLinks), she is an active politician at local,

national and European level. Having spent many years working

as a senior advisor at the Ministry of Infrastructure and

Environment, she then moved to become vice-president at the

Utrecht Federation for Nature and the Environment. Lot van

Hooijdonk studied History, Political Science and Foreign Relations

at the universities of Utrecht, Florida and the Clingendael

Institute. She has written many articles on sustainable mobility.

––

Dr. Roel Vermeulen is Associate Professor at Utrecht University’s

Institute of Risk Assessment Sciences and a Visiting Professor

with Imperial College London. The research he conducts is of a

highly multidisciplinarial nature and focusses on environmental

risk factors to cancer and neurological diseases. Some of his main

areas of research look at creating new methods for quantifying

the impact lifestyle and the environment has on the human

biological system. Vermeulen has sat on several committees,

including the World Health Organization and the US National

Toxicology Program. He also sits on The Health Council of the

Netherlands’ Dutch Expert Committee on Occupational Safety.

July 2016 17

issues. And that is something scientists

don’t do enough of.”

Painful Measures

Policy measures on the environment or

infrastructure always serve to cause a stir

among the public. So having the correct

underlying figures readily available is vital.

Take urban compaction, or an expected

increase in Utrecht’s population by 70,000

in 2030. Van Hooijdonk sees this as a

positive development: “As a member of the

Green Party I am a big supporter of urban

compaction. It is environmentallyspeaking

a much more sound option, as

it will centralise facilities and thus reduce

the need for cars, as

all of these facilities

would be easily

reached on foot or

by bike. And a

compact city

doesn’t necessarily

imply the need for

high-rise

construction. Utrecht, certainly when

compared with The Hague or

Amsterdam, has always preferred low-rise

architecture. Usually two-story builds.

This could quite easily be increased to a

five or six-story standard, as we have

already put into effect in the development

of the derelict industrial area at the

Veilinghaven. Utrecht has more areas like

it, e.g. along its outer canals, that could

accommodate this type of low-to-midrise

architecture.”

Another controversial measure is the

non-admittance of diesel engines that

don’t carry a diesel particulate filter into

green zone. Van Hooijdonk: “That has led to

a 30 % reduction in soot emission among

light city traffic. Old diesel engines are,

of course, not the only emitters of soot and

on the grand scale of things, will probably

not lead to a big swing, but I can think of

very few other measure that have had such

an impact.”

“There’s also a moral component to it”,

Van Hooijdonk continues. “Air pollution

is still in the top three causes of early

deaths. And people can do very little about

it. One simply cannot choose which air

to breathe and which not to. How long

are we going to allow people to suffer the

consequences? That’s why, in Utrecht,

we’ve decided to go with the green zone

and why we’re helping people find

alternatives. The measures have helped

a large group of people with respiratory

deficiencies.”

Vermeulen: “Exactly. There is certainly

an argument behind the green zone idea.

There’s your large group and the smaller

one affected by it isn’t completely limited

in its movement, i.e. they are allowed to

drive their cars, just not some particular

models.”

Vermeulen does

not have any

specific wishes

he’d like to see

come to fruition

in Utrecht’s

environmental

policy: “But I

would like to

see a more integrated approach to

environmental issues between the

university and the knowledge institutes;

the city council and its residents. That

way we can have scientific renewal and

scientific application better meet the

needs of the city and its residents.”

A message of hope

Van Hooijdonk would like to conclude

the interview with a message of hope:

“The main issue often comes down to

balancing the interests of the individual

with that of the group. At first glance,

people appear to want to get things sorted

in their own back yards, e.g. ‘Can you get

me a parking permit and a 30kmh zone

for my street?’ But if you ask the next

question, i.e. how people would like to

use public space? They’ll tend to have ideas

that stretch beyond the realm of their own

street. Then they’ll come up with visions

of green spaces, where they can exercise

and relax and meet other people. We’re

now increasingly involved in dialogues

with our citizens and entrepreneurs and

these have yielded some very good ideas.

That attention to quality of living and

health is the real turnaround that has

been made in politics and urban planning.

These had previously centred around the

motorist, which is one of the reasons parts

of the canal system were filled back in

and Hoog Catharijne shopping centre

was built. The human standard had

appeared to have been abandoned, but

it is now back on the main stage with

proper attention given to the people that

live in a certain area.”

Utrecht, Toronto and Hong Kong join

forces in research into healthy cities.

Utrecht University, the University of

Toronto and the Chinese University

of Hong Kong are set to conduct a joint

research project into healthy urban

living. The project marks the first time

expertise and insights into urban

health issues from three different

urban areas from different parts of

the world are combined. The research

should trigger the discovery of new,

sustainable solutions to the global

challenges accompanying the growth

in urban populations.

An increasing number of people

worldwide are currently living in urban

areas. This makes research into urban

issues, such as health, city life and

urban dynamics a global challenge.

The strength and expertise of three

universities are now joined together

to strengthen the impact of scientific

research into the urban living

environment. The partnership focusses

on migration, the role of citizens in the

rules of society and public health in

urban areas.

www.uu.nl/healthy-urban-living