Our
Plan
Cities@Heart will pilot, test and scale up strategies to improve awareness, prevention, detection and management of cardiovascular disease in 7 European cities.
Co-creation
We collaborate with city officials, healthcare professionals, and community members to co-create innovative strategies and interventions for improving cardiovascular health in urban areas.
Piloting
We pilot the developed strategies and interventions in real urban settings to assess their effectiveness and feasibility for long-term implementation.
Evaluation and scale-up
Based on rigorous evaluation, we iterate and refine the strategies to ensure their sustainability and effectiveness in reducing health-related inequalities in cities.
Goals
01
Reduce burden of cardiovascular disease
Improve CVD awareness, detection, prevention and management by addressing barriers to reducing the burden of CVD disability and mortality.
03
Integrate data operability
Create a digital data ecosystem that can support project stakeholders, integrating CVD data and harmonising data standards.
05
Implement new technology
Devise measures for interventions through new technology to scale up urban CVD strategies.
07
Disseminate findings
Effectively disseminate our findings and activities among various members of the public and stakeholder groups.
02
Improve health equity
Increase insights into urban health disparities and develop tools to lessen CVD burden among underserved communities.
04
Develop innovative policies
Evaluate the health economics of CVD interventions and develop innovative policies to tackle the costs of CVD.
06
Engage stakeholders
Engage stakeholders including citizens, patients, municipalities, industry, and support the next generation of health technology.
08
Ensure sustainable solutions
Establish a robust project management framework and promote long-term sustainabilit
Work
Packages
Work
Packages
1
CVD Burden & Inequality
A cross-cutting work package that engages cities, citizens, community leaders, municipalities, and health and policy stakeholders. Through co-production, it defines priorities for all other WPs, focusing on how urban inequalities drive cardiovascular disease and identifying practical solutions for prevention and improved population health.
2
Digital Ecosystem
Develops technology solutions with industry partners to address inequality gaps identified in WP1. It gathers health data to support city-based interventions (WP3–6) and builds the Cities@Heart Digital Ecosystem through iterative cycles of brainstorming, prototyping, development, testing, and evaluation.
3
Pilot Awareness
Builds on insights from WP1 and technologies from WP2 to co-create scalable awareness interventions with communities. Working with local stakeholders, it pilots tailored initiatives addressing obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and diabetes, aiming to improve knowledge and behaviour for primary and secondary CVD prevention in underserved communities.
4
Pilot Prevention
Evaluates urban strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention across primordial, primary, and secondary levels. It focuses on promoting healthy lifestyles, improving pharmacological risk-factor management, and strengthening healthcare access and engagement, demonstrating how addressing key drivers like obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and diabetes can reduce CVD and health inequalities city-wide.
Pilot Detection
5
Improves approaches to identify individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease or recurrent events. Using risk scores, clinical markers, and digital technologies, it supports earlier detection and targeted lifestyle or therapeutic interventions, helping communities and healthcare systems deliver guideline-based prevention and care.
6
Pilot Management
Integrates social, pharmacological, and technological approaches to close the gap between evidence and real-world CVD management. It develops and evaluates solutions across pilot cities to improve guideline-based prevention and reduce cardiovascular mortality, generating scalable strategies for wider implementation in urban settings across Europe.
Scale & Sustain
8
Builds on earlier WPs to create a lasting legacy for Cities@Heart. It develops a framework and decision-support tools for policymakers, using project evidence to enable scale-up, address implementation barriers, and strengthen coordination between public and private sectors for effective cardiovascular prevention policies.
Share & Engage
9
Uses the full potential of our European and global partners to disseminate results from Cities@Heart and achieve disruptive change across the spectrum of CVD awareness, prevention, detection and management.
10
Manage
Provides effective project coordination and organisation to ensure fulfilment of all milestones and deliverables within the set time and budget. Project governance bodies will be set up to ensure effective coordination and oversight of project activities. This includes a Project Management Office (PMO) as well as several advisory bodies.