ABSTRACT
In highly urbanized and unequal Latin America, urban health and health equity research are essential to effective policymaking. To ensure the application of relevant and context-specific evidence to efforts to reduce urban health inequities, urban health research in Latin America must incorporate strategic research translation efforts. Beginning in 2017, the Urban Health in Latin America (SALURBAL) project implemented policy-relevant research and engaged policymakers and the public to support the translation of research findings. Over 6 years, more than 200 researchers across eight countries contributed to SALURBAL's interdisciplinary network. This network allowed SALURBAL to adapt research and engagement activities to local contexts and priorities, thereby maximizing the policy relevance of research findings and their application to promote policy action, inform urban interventions, and drive societal change. SALURBAL achieved significant visibility and credibility among academic and nonacademic urban health stakeholders, resulting in the development of evidence and tools to support urban policymakers, planners, and policy development processes across the region. These efforts and their outcomes reveal important lessons regarding maintaining flexibility and accounting for local context in research, ensuring that resources are dedicated to policy engagement and dissemination activities, and recognizing that assessing policy impact requires a nuanced understanding of complex policymaking processes. These reflections are relevant for promoting urban health and health equity research translation across the global south and worldwide. This paper presents SALURBAL's strategy for dissemination and policy translation, highlights innovative initiatives and their outcomes, discusses lessons learned, and shares recommendations for future efforts to promote effective translation of research findings.
ABSTRACT
Abstract The term “co-benefits” refers to positive outcomes accruing from a policy beyond the intended outcome, often or usually in other sectors. In the urban context, policies implemented in particular sectors (such as transport, energy or waste) often generate multiple co-benefits in other areas. Such benefits may be related to the reduction of local or global environmental impacts and also extend into the area of public health. A key to identifying and realising co-benefits is the adoption of systems approaches to understand inter-sectoral linkages and, in particular, the translation of this understanding to improved sector-specific and city governance. This paper reviews a range of policies which can yield health and climate co-benefits across different urban sectors and illustrates, through a series of cases, how taking a systems approach can lead to innovations in urban governance which aid the development of healthy and sustainable cities.
Resumo “Co-benefícios” é um termo que se refere aos impactos positivos de uma política além do que se era esperado inicialmente. No contexto urbano, políticas executadas em um setor específico (como transporte, energia ou resíduos) frequentemente podem gerar múltiplos co-benefícios em outras áreas, como redução dos impactos ambientais globais e locais, e se extendendo à saúde pública. Um ponto chave para se poder identificar e gerar co-benefícios é adotar a abordagem por sistemas para entender as ligações inter-setoriais. Esta abordagem também pode ajudar no entendimento de como podemos melhorar um setor específico e a governança urbana em geral. Assim, este artigo faz uma revisão da literatura de várias políticas que geram co-benefícios climáticos e de saúde em diversos setores e ilustra através de uma série de casos como a abordagem por sistemas pode levar a inovações em governança urbana que levem ao desenvolvimento de cidades mais sustentaveis e saudáveis.
Resumen “Co-beneficios” es un término que se refiere a los impactos positivos de una política que van más allá de los resultados esperados, con frecuencia en sectores distintos. En el contexto urbano, las políticas en determinados sectores (como el transporte, la energía o la gestión de residuos) muchas veces generan co-beneficios múltiples en otros sectores. Entre dichos beneficios se incluye la reducción de los impactos ambientales a nivel local o mundial e incluso en el ámbito de la salud pública. Entre las acciones claves para la identificación y realización de co-beneficios se incluye la adopción de un enfoque sistémico-analítico para entender los vínculos intersectoriales y, en particular, la traducción de este entendimiento en mejor gobernanza a nivel de sectores específicos y municipalidades. Este artículo repasa una serie de políticas que puedan generar co-beneficios para la salud y el clima a través de distintos sectores urbanos. Por medio de casos ejemplares, ilustra cómo un abordaje por sistemas puede producir innovaciones en la gobernanza urbana que faciliten el desarrollo de ciudades sanas y sostenibles.