Cities play a decisive role in building a more resilient, fairer society that contribute to population health, all the while facing challenges such as climate change, economic recovery, transportation, housing and social inequities.
To meet these challenges, collaboration and a relationship of trust between local decision-makers and the research community are essential. In practice, however, municipal officials and members of the research community operate in environments responding to different logics, which can create brakes and obstacles to effective collaborations. In this context, the Governance of Urban Resilience Cité-ID LivingLab (ÉNAP) and the SPHERELab (University of Montreal), in association with the Office of the Chief Scientist of Quebec, invites municipal stakeholders to join the Uni-Cité Collaboratory.
The Uni-Cité Collaboratory promotes and optimizes the links between science and policy as part of action research with the municipal sector and creates resources to share lessons learned to support future collaborations.
As we are dealing with completely altered living conditions due to the pandemic, it is essential to understand how we are coping, today and in the coming months.
The COHESION study, led by Yan Kestens, Kate Zinszer and Gregory Moullec, evaluates the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on individuals like you, across the country. Through online surveys and a smartphone app, we can understand how daily activities, social interactions, and the mental health of Canadians are being affected throughout, and following, the pandemic.
Our overall goal is to catalyze the implementation of sustainable transportation interventions to support health, mobility, and equity outcomes in cities. We primarily focus on two pillars of sustainable transportation interventions – All Ages and Abilities (AAA) bicycle networks and speed reduction interventions – which serve as implementation science case studies. Our Canadian and Australian team will extend intersectoral partnerships, build capacity, and develop tools to advance healthy cities implementation science.
CP:Meghan Winters, Daniel Fuller, Marie-Soleil Cloutier, Sarah Moore,
Yan Kestens, Anne Harris, Andrew Howard, Sara Kirk, Alison McPherson,
Linda Rothman, Martine Shareck, Jennifer Tomasone. 2023-2028
Urban design focusing on cycle paths, greenways, placottoirs and greening is a way to redress health inequalities in disadvantaged neighborhoods. These developments have the potential to make physical activity more accessible, facilitate connections between neighbors and other parts of the city, and improve our well-being. It is therefore expected that nearby residents will derive significant health benefits. But will everyone benefit equally? In the long term, could these interventions primarily benefit the health of new, more affluent residents attracted to new developments, and displace long-time residents?
These are the questions that drive our new mandate. In the spring of 2019, INTERACT received additional funding from CIHR to develop our work on health inequalities, and more specifically on gentrification processes in Montreal.
PC: Yan Kestens, 2019-2023
Impacts of the new Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) on mobility, health and equity: A pre-post intervention study, is a study conducted by the Transportation Research at McGill (TRAM) and SphereLab and funded through the Collaborative Health Research Projects (CHRP) program.
With a predicted initial ridership of more than 167,000 passengers per day, the REM has the potential to radically alter land-use and transport patterns across the Island of Montreal and well beyond. The implications for physical and mental health and social wellbeing are significant, as public transport improvements are broadly understood to yield public health, environmental, and economic benefits.
The REM study intends to provide a longitudinal insight into the respondent’s perception of REM’s impact and therefore improve overall understanding of such infrastructure developments on the population.
Principal Investigators: Ahmed El-Geneidi, 2019- 2023
L’équipe INTErventions urbaines, Recherche-Action, Communautés et sanTé (INTERACT) is a pan-Canadian collaboration of scientists, urban planners, and citizens uncovering the impact of urban changes on health and equity. Our work contributes to sustainable and equitable urban development for generations to come.
In 2017, INTERACT launched a multiyear cohort study and intervention research platform to understand how built environment changes influence health. We have since expanded INTERACT’s research program to help cities respond effectively to today’s most pressing challenges. Our ultimate aim is to address the need for better evidence, generated by and for communities, that can guide local action and inform a broader national conversation on the design of healthier and more equitable cities in Canada.
Principal Investigators: Yan Kestens, Meghan Winters, Daniel Fuller, 2016 - 2021
Financed by the Institut population and public health (IPPH): Building Healthy Cities – Dragons’ Den, the program INTErvention Research and Action for CiTies and InnOvatioN (INTERACTION) leverages current and future developments in information technology, big data, and artificial intelligence to collect, transform and analyse data on vision, urban change and related population health trajectories. We
build evidence-based simulation tools to facilitate citizens’, planners’ and other decision makers’ choices
when designing future cities for health, equity, and sustainability.
Principal Investigators: Yan Kestens, 2018 - 2019
CURHA
PR: Yan Kestens, Basile Chaix and Philippe Gerber, 2013 - 2016
Impact of urban interventions on active mobility, social participation and well-being of older adults: Participatory action research on healthy aging in Rosemont.
The PACTE-Aînés Rosemont project is supported by the Chair in Urban Interventions and Population Health at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal and the Island of Montreal Seniors Round Table (TCAÎM).
CP: Yan Kestens,2016 - 2018
Collaborations
Personal Social Networks, Built Environment and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors: a Prospective Investigation with Young Adults
Chercheur Principal : Tracie Barnett, Mélanie Henderson, Johanne St-Charles, 2021 - 2026
Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada
Gentrification, Urban Interventions, and Equity (GENUINE): advancing healthy city research on gentrification
Chercheur Principal : Meghan Winters, Caislin Firth, 2021 - 2022
Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada
Equity in Built Environment Surveillance Tool (E-BEST)
Chercheur Principal : Jeff Brook, 2020 - 2024
Public Health Agency of Canada
Explorer les mécanismes des inégalités sociales liées au tabagisme en population adolescente pour développer une stratégie préventive intégrative : Le projet EXIST
Chercheur Principal : Laetitia Minary, 2020 - 2025
INCA-IReSP - Tabac
Examining the impacts of the downtown Sherbrooke (QC) revitalization project on health equity among young adults: a mixed-methods evaluation
Chercheur Principal : Martine Shareck, 2021 - 2022
Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada
Healthy and SustAInable Cities Platform to develop methods and analytical procedures to better understand – and critically assess - how urban contexts, smart cities, data sensing and AI can contribute to improve population health and reduce inequities in health.
Principal Investigators : Andrea Lodi, Yan Kestens and Marc-Antoine Dilhac, 2018 - 2021
Canadian Instituts of Health Research and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
Comment les politiques publiques peuvent-elles soutenir la réussite éducative ? Un partenariat pour la mobilisation des connaissances au profit des politiques publiques destinées aux écoles
Co-chercheur Principal : Pascale Morin, Alexandre Lebel, Philippe De Wals, 2019 - 2020
SSHRC
Priorite cancers tabac : programme de recherche et d’interventions pour reduire le tabagisme et inflechir la prevalence des cancers liés au tabac
Co-chercheur Principal : Laetitia Minary, 2017 - 2020
INCA
Une étude des disparités territoriales de santé. L’objectif principal du projet RECORD est d’étudier les disparités de santé qui existent en Île-de-France, avec un intérêt particulier pour les différences observées entre quartiers favorisés et quartiers défavorisés.
Principal Investigators : Basile Chaix & Yan Kestens, 2012 - 2014
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Novel Real-Time Measurement of Physical Activity Patterns in Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension through GPS monitoring and Accelometry
Principal Investigators : Kaberi Dasgupta et Nancy Ross, 2012-2015
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Development of an instrument for assessing occupational exposure in cancer case-control studies and its implication to the cancer of lung, brain, ovary and colon
Principal Investigator : Jack Siemiatycki, 2011-2016
GREPEC
Neighborhood charactersitics and depression: longitudinal relationship in Canadians with and without chronic conditions
Principal Investigator: Norbert Schimtz, 2011-2013
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Des données probantes pour les interventions de santé publique visant à réduire les inégalités de santé
Principal Investigators: Louise Potvin, Marie-France Raynault, 2011-2016
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Interdisciplinary Study of Inequalities in Smoking (ISIS)
Principal Investigator: Katherine Frohlich, 2011-2015
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
L'Équipe des IRSC en épidémiologie sociale et psychiatrique et le développement de la zone circonscrite d'épidémiologie du sud-ouest de Montréal: la poursuite de l'étude longitudinale sur la santé mentale et l'étude de ses comorbidités avec la santé physique
Principal Investigator: Jean Caron, 2011-2016
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Evaluating the effects of legislation prohibiting smoking in private vehicles carrying children
Principal Investigator: Jennifer O’Loughlin, 2011 - 2013
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Space-Time Exposure to Foodscapes, Diet and BMI: Combining Travel Surveys, Objective Measures of the Food Environment, and Individual-Level Measures of Dietary Intake and BMI
Principal Investigator: Yan Kestens, 2010-2013
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Development of an Integrated Multi-Sensor Measurement System for Assessing People-Place Interactions and Population Health Outcomes
Principal Investigator: Yan Kestens, 2010 - 2012
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Extending Concepts and Measures of People-Place Interactions to Tackle Spatial Determinants of Chronic Health Outcomes
Principal Principal Investigator: Yan Kestens, 2010-2012
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Impact of an Intervention Designed to Increase the Accessibility and User-Friendliness of an Active Mode of Transportation on Population Health: The Case of BIXI Montreal
Principal Investigator: Lise Gauvin, 2009 - 2012
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Développement urbain : compétitivité, équité de l'accès aux ressources, qualité et durabilité des milieux de vie
Principal Investigator: Marius Thériault, 2009-2013
Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture