Parallel Session 20 – Urban Health and Global Environmental Change: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives
Draft synthesis of session
Session Organizers
 Melanie Boeckmann, Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology,
Bremen, Germany
 Shih-Chun Lung, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Nordin Hasan, ICSU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Presentation Title: “Developing and urban health research programme using the systems
approach”
Summary
There is an urgent need to initiate urban health and wellbeing programs that promote more
holistic evidence-based outlooks for decision-making systems and approaches at the local and
regional levels. Recognition of this imperative led the International Council for Science (ICSU) to
promote research that does more than pay attention to distal factors and cross-scale
influences. It stresses the need for studies of urban dynamics, including the effects of feedback
and human-environment interactions. The ICSU Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP)
developed in 2011 its Science Plan on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban
Environment: A Systems Approach. A number of pilot projects have been initiated, each of
which aims to investigate the challenges and benefits of taking a systems approach to
population health in a major city in the region.
Key Lessons Learned

Developing a multidisciplinary research idea into a viable research project involves a
great deal of effort and perseverance. In addition to that there is a need for clear
articulation of a research approach and methodology. In developing the work on urban
health and wellbeing in a changing urban environment using the systems approach
researchers from several disciplines had first to be instructed on the methodologies
available to collaboratively conceptualize the relationships of all the major determinants
of urban health and wellbeing in a changing environment. Once the conceptual models
have been more or less understood and agreed, there was the need to prioritize the
various research questions and write a coherent proposal that would attract funding.
Policy/Practice Implications of Research

Our research is designed collaboratively with the participation of scientific, technical
and managerial staff in a designated urban area. This co-design of research ensures that
the science questions posed in the project will produce answers that can be applied to
urban policy-makers and managers. Policy relevance of the research in ensured because
the design is collaborative and the scientists in the research teams understands the
need to be policy and practice-relevant. The institutional challenge is to ensure the
participation of city managers in scientific research design, and that the findings of the
research is implemented even if it means overturning earlier decisions or replacing old
policies with newly redesigned policies.
Knowledge Gaps and Needs

There are methodological knowledge gaps and research groups engaged in the codesign of multidisciplinary collaborative research needs to participate in capacity
building workshop to understand the systems approach that we use. The tendency for
established research groups/teams is to do more of the same using methods they have
been used to. When a multidisciplinary approach is adopted there will also be the need
to learn new ways of analyzing data from multiple disciplines. Quantitative methods in
one field may not be applicable in another and new ways may have to be found to
integrate data or information from several different fields.
Shih-Chun Lung, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Presentation Title: “Using a systems approach to design a green transportation system for
better urban health under climate change”
Summary
The main focus of this presentation is to present a cross-disciplinary integrated research
framework of using a systems approach linking transportation, air quality (and climate) and
urban health. Different green transportation alternatives have various degrees of
transportation function. To tackle the challenge of complexity among different sectors, the
emphasis is placed on the feedback loops among green transportation, air quality, climate, and
urban health, according to collaborative conceptual modelling (CCM). A conceptual tool kit is
constructed to provide interrelationships among different sectors. This presentation uses
Taiwan as an example to showcase the conceptual tool kit.
Key Lessons Learned

The systems approach is a key methodology that can be used in multidisciplinary works
such as linking the research of health-related issues to global environmental change
studies and urban planning. The essential lesson learned from this work is to
demonstrate the importance of using such a methodology to streamline modeling works
in different disciplines at the research planning stage to ensure the successful delivery of
research outcomes in each discipline as well as an integrated research output useful to
tackling challenges in current urban planning.
Policy/Practice Implications of Research

It is important for policy-makers to visualize the potential benefits among different
policy choices before making decisions. In this work, a conceptual tool kit is constructed
to provide relationships among different sectors in transportation, air quality, and urban
health. Decision-makers can be better informed of the potential co-benefits of green
transportation alternatives with respect to environmental impacts and health risks
under current and future climate change scenarios. Actions then can be taken to
formulate plans for future transportation infrastructure that would lead to better urban
health under climate change.
Knowledge Gaps and Needs

We need more research on using a systems approach to connect different disciplines
and further link with decision-making processes. Doing multidisciplinary research is
challenging since different disciplines have their own jargon. Collaborative Conceptual
Modelling (CCM) has the potential to focus on the overlapping linkages among different
disciplines with a common language, and leave the discipline jargon within their own
research field. We need to promote the usage of CCM in order to facilitate transdisciplinary research under Future Earth.
Katrina Proust, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Presentation Title: “History and the feedback dynamics of technology choice”
Summary
This study provides an example of the use of Collaborative Conceptual Modelling (CCM). It
demonstrates how techniques from the practice of history can reveal important aspects of
feedback dynamics. Installing air conditioning immediately allows people to control their living
environment. Hence, communities have been able to inhabit areas of extreme temperature and
humidity that would be otherwise unsuitable for permanent settlements. But this dependence
results in a loss of adaptive capacity. The use of air conditioning in domestic dwellings reduces
an individual’s ability to acclimatize to temperature and humidity changes. When serious
heatwaves occur, and dependence on air conditioning is highest; the power-generating system
is stretched to capacity. This situation increases the risk of power failures, and the number of
cases of thermal stress in the community. It has important implications for climate-change
adaptation in urban settings.
Key Lessons Learned

Historical studies can provide dynamically relevant data to support system analysis.
Such studies are essential in attempts to see strings of events as evolving patterns.

We live in a world dominated by feedback where urban systems are becoming more
complex. We need to be alert to feedback effects, especially cross-sector feedback.
Policy/Practice Implications of Research


The unintended outcomes of urban policy are usually delayed and unwanted. Because
they are delayed, these outcomes are often erroneously attributed to proximal events.
To anticipate unwanted outcomes, urban policymakers need to imagine a much wider
system with its many links.
Historical-dynamical studies can help to understand systems better and to reduce policy
surprise.
Key Discussion Points

Systems dynamics is good for modelling a physical system, but not very precise for
modelling social and economic systems.

Urban planners can and should play an important part in improving health in cities.

Co-production and co-design of knowledge will require all sides to compromise and
open lines of communication outside their element.

System archetypes are structures that frequently occur in system and that have direct
correlation with human behavior. They are often symptoms of deeper behaviors and
are numerous in example.