MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions has launched 10 collaborative solutions networks with a common goal: to effect real-world social change by co-designing and demonstrating what works to address critical urban health challenges in our communities.

The networks are made up of more than 170 scientists, community partners, policy makers, and people with lived expertise from across the country. Together, network members are working to ensure that solutions are feasible, appropriate, and effective — and that they reflect the goals, priorities, and contexts of the communities they aim to serve.

The result will be 10 evidence-based solutions that are tested and ready for scale-up in cities across Canada.

Solutions for Healthy Cities Symposium 2020

The networks came together for a symposium in March 2020. Learn more about the event

We can create a healthier future for all.

Cities promise enormous opportunities to reduce social and economic inequalities that impact our health.

Yet in Canada, many urban dwellers are excluded from these opportunities. Only select groups benefit from the current hierarchies of power, and from the systems that determine access to health-supporting resources in cities.
In a country that values ‘universal’ health care as core to its identity, health outcomes among residents are sharply — and unconscionably — divided based on socioeconomic factors.

Although deeply entrenched in the status quo, these unfair health outcomes are not inevitable. They are the results of the human-designed programs, policies, and perspectives that shape our behaviours and opportunities for better health.

A growing body of evidence clearly shows that change is possible.

Through innovative urban policies and programs that address the social determinants of health, we can create a healthier future for all.