What are the health needs and challenges?

Cities are facing unprecedented health challenges, from the growing burden of cardiovascular disease, to increased demands on health systems due to rapid urbanization, the constant threat of emerging diseases often hitting urban populations hardest as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of climate change, and the global shortage of skilled health workers.

Only 10-20% of our health is determined by the healthcare we access. 80-90% is determined by the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age – factors known as social, environmental, and economic determinants of health. At the same time, data and AI are transforming the urban health landscape and providing new opportunities for driving population health and transforming health systems from reactive care systems, to proactive, predictive and even preventive health systems.

How partnership activities address these needs and challenges

Under the umbrella of AI4HealthyCities, a network of cities was created by the Novartis Foundation and developed in collaboration with Microsoft AI for Good. AI4HealthyCities aims to challenge the current reality where people living in neighboring zip codes experience drastic differences in heart health and life expectancy.

Partner organizations work in cities to bring together data from health and health-influencing sectors and apply advanced analytics and AI to provide decision makers with insights about the true drivers of cardiovascular health and equity. Data from health-influencing sectors is included because health is influenced more by the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, and age, than by the quality of healthcare they access. This includes factors as diverse as housing, access to healthy food, income, physical exercise or green space, education, professional occupation, pollution, migration, and the influence of structural racism and agism.

These insights will ultimately help city authorities make more informed decisions about how to target health resources toward the interventions that positively impact the health of the greatest number of people. Only by understanding what truly drives health outcomes in different populations can health inequities be narrowed.