Partnership for Healthy Cities
Michael R. Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, invited the City of Helsinki to join the Partnership for Healthy Cities, a network funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, in autumn 2019. The network consists of mayors and city executives, and currently includes around 70 cities around the world.
The main objectives of this cooperation are to prevent the increase in non-communicable diseases (such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, diabetes and mental disorders) and to reduce accidents through various preventive interventions. In practice, the cooperation takes the form of seminars and training courses, as well as annual funding for cities to develop their activities. The World Health Organization (WHO) is a key partner of the network. The network’s management and practical implementation is the responsibility of Vital Strategies, an international public health organisation whose consultants guide the work of the City of Helsinki.
So far, the City of Helsinki has received funding from the network to implement three projects. Between 2020 and 2022, the City implemented a project to develop and pilot a model to promote safe and active school commutes and everyday mobility for children. The project focused on the importance of the built environment in making active modes of transport more attractive, i.e. reinforcing the positive image of walking and cycling, in order to make them the preferred mode of transport.
In 2023–2024, the City of Helsinki received funding to implement the PUHTI project. PUHTI is a project coordinated by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and stands for the management of health and welfare promotion by means of information outside the service system. The City used the funding for the PUHTI project in those years to procure expert services from THL. THL provided the City of Helsinki with regional data on topics such as the following: food sales data from the K and S grocery chains, bad credit history, people with a hobby or competition licence in sports and data on discussions by young people in Mieli ry’s Sekasin chat. Based on this data, Helsinki was provided with a Power BI dashboard to view the forecasts, situational pictures and indicators needed to manage health and welfare promotion. The dashboard allowed for regional analyses and served as an important instrument for studying regional disparities in wellbeing in Helsinki.
In 2025 and 2026, the City of Helsinki will continue to implement the PUHTI project in cooperation with THL and the Partnership for Healthy Cities. The next phase of the PUHTI project will focus on building regional welfare profiles, taking into account PUHTI data and the City’s own data. During 2025, the focus will be on mapping the City’s own data, after which the work will continue with the building of the profiles. The City will use the information from the project in areas such as service network planning, the Welfare Plan and situational pictures of the city’s areas.
Helsinki is analysing regional differences in the health and well-being of city residents
5.4.2023