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From community garden to steering committee: Cities@Heart sees Cork's approach to urban heart health first-hand On 22 September 2026, the Cities@Heart coordinators and several project partners spent a day in Cork. They met local community leaders, health service managers, and researchers to see how the city is tackling cardiovascular disease (CVD) at neighbourhood level. The day ended with a hybrid Steering Committee meeting, so the whole consortium could take part. Where the

Don't Miss a Beat: how Cities@Heart and its partners marked World Heart Day 2026 World Heart Day (29 September) is a global moment to raise awareness of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the world's leading cause of death. This year, partners across the Cities@Heart consortium marked the day with a webinar in Belfast, a public campaign in İzmir, and a Dress Red Day in Utrecht, alongside a week-long online campaign from the project. Why World Heart Day

Birmingham City's Director of Public Health, Sally Burns, presented Cities@Heart at the 11th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC 2026) in Sydney, Australia. The conference ran from 1 to 3 September and marked 40 years since the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. WHO Alliance for Healthy Cities Conference The three-day conference was hosted by the UNSW Cities Institute and Healthy Cities Australia. It brought together mayors, policymakers, practitioner

From Safe Hearts to Healthy Cities: Cities@Heart Sets Out Its Approach at ESC Congress. Speaking on ESC TV Connect at this year's ESC Congress, Cities@Heart Project Director Dipak Kotecha, Industry Lead Franck Perraudin (Novartis), and Donna Fitzsimons, Professor of Nursing at Queen's University Belfast, set out how the project intends to turn the European Union's Safe Hearts Plan into practical change for Europe's cities. Adopted by the European Commission in December 2025,

New video series highlights how seven WHO Healthy Cities will strengthen local action to prevent cardiovascular disease through the Cities@Heart project. How can cities play a leading role in reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease? A new series of videos from the Cities@Heart project gives the floor to representatives from the participating WHO European Healthy Cities, who share how they plan to use the project to strengthen local interventions, foster collaboration an

The two-day Cities@Heart Kick-Off Meeting, held on January 27–28, 2026, at Novartis, Basel, marked the official start of a five-year collaboration aimed at reducing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and tackling health inequalities in urban communities . A shared vision for healthier cities Cities@Heart brings together universities, city governments, patient organisations, industry partners, and international bodies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European S

A new public-private collaboration aims to improve urban health and equality by implementing and evaluating evidence-based strategies that improve awareness, prevention, detection and management of cardiovascular disease. Key takeaways: Cardiovascular disease remains a major concern in cities, with poor outcomes and high societal cost often driven by unequal access to healthcare. A pan-European consortium of 34 international partners launch an ambitious project to reduce th