A research agenda for urban health security

The relationship between urban environments and infectious diseases has been well documented and cities represent a context in which it is critically important to understand the practice of health security—especially as it relates to epidemics, pandemics, and other acute public health emergencies. Recent trends have emphasized the growth of state-centric models but, because of their unique attributes, cities are deserving of their own concerted health security efforts. This perspective piece provides an overview of ten research themes necessary for advancing health security in urban environments—community partnerships, place management organizations, and grassroots engagement; capacity assessments, simulation exercises, and after-action reviews; governance and financing structures; health threat surveillance systems; policymaker perceptions; private sector engagement; resilient urban infrastructure; risk communication; data-enabled urban systems and technological solutions; and urban networks and organizations. These themes should be pursued with intentionality as a means of ensuring that cities are designed and well-prepared to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from diverse health threats. Realizing this agenda holds the potential to bolster public health, resilience, and sustainability in our cities and around the world.