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HORUS: Health Outcomes from Raised Urban Settings

Croatia, Netherlands, Spain

Exploring how urban built environments influence non-communicable disease risk and pilots place-based interventions to promote healthier lifestyles among vulnerable populations in European cities.

Background

NCDs, especially diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. CVDs kill more people globally than any other disease, accounting for 17.9 million deaths per year. Diabetes, on the other hand, accounts for 2 million deaths annually. These diseases have a greater impact on vulnerable populations. This increased prevalence among this population is related to a range of social and environmental factors, lifestyles, and the impact of behavioural determinants. Low-income communities, such as migrants or ethnic minorities, are still undertreated and unprotected by most of the healthcare systems with a lack of quality of care for NCDs and a lack of preventive measures specifically adapted for them.

Aims

HORUS aims to tackle NCDs, especially diabetes and CVDs, in urban built environments among vulnerable populations, mainly low-income communities, migrants and ethnic minorities.

Project plan

It has a twofold objective.

  1. To analyse and explore in depth the causal links between the characteristics of the urban built environment and the prevalence of NCD risk behaviours in an integrated, comprehensive and multi-approach manner. HORUS will focus on existing urban interventions modifying the physical-social and functional characteristics of the built environment with a significant impact on the prevalence of risk behaviours and, eventually, NCD outcomes.

  2. To develop pilot interventions in three European countries –Spain, Croatia and The Netherlands– to promote behaviour change towards healthier lifestyles for empowering vulnerable populations, and to support citizens in making optimal use of the urban environment they live in while reducing NCD risk behaviours, especially those related to diabetes and CVDs.

Publications and output

To access publications and other outputs relating to this project, see our publications webpage.

You can also visit the HORUS project website for more information

Funding organisations

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