H2020 HEART, HEAlthier Cities through Blue-Green Regenerative Technologies
HEART/945105 HEAlthier Cities through Blue-Green Regenerative Technologies

Project duration: marts 2021 – february 2025
Background
Modern urban lifestyle is associated with chronic stress, insufficient physical activity and exposure to anthropogenic environmental hazards. Access to green space may produce various health benefits: enhanced physical activity, stress reduction and greater social cohesion. The vision of the European Union (EU) is to be leading in nature-based innovation for sustainable and resilient cities. The Horizon 2020 EU-funded HEART project, is a new integrated approach being developed to improve urban health and reduce health disparities through studies in three European demonstration sites; Aarhus, Belgrade and Athens.
The main aims of the research in HEART is to monitor, test and assess the impact of specific blue-green solutions (BGS) on health and well-being correlating environmental, social, and clinical indicators in various disease groups
Method
The Danish site in Aarhus will provide data on 185 participants investigating the pathways of urban greenness, health, and well-being in four clinical groups.
A set of environmental indicators is developed and applied for HEART demo sites.
Both environmental and clinical data are collected simultaneously and used to investigate possible correlations.
Data are collected via wearables, questionnaires, physician visits, field surveys, in situ equipment and remote sensing imagery.
The Danish site is located at the National Rehabilitation Marselisborg Centre and the surrounding SPARK (Sound, Park, Activities, Rehabilitation, Climate) urban park.
Results
The study analyses are yet to be conducted. The added value of HEART would be to design an innovative urban planning methodology that embraces and promotes policymaking for proper BGS to improve urban health and reduce health disparities.
Data conduction is expected to run from March 2023 -March 2024
Project results will be available ultimo 2024.
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Read more about the project on HEART website

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement No 945105