Gangnam Declaration for Ubiquitous Healthy Cities

At the 4th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities, held October 26-29, 2010 in Gangnam, Seoul, Republic of Korea, the members of the Alliance for Healthy Cities shared experiences and views on strategies for developing “Ubiquitous Healthy Cities” and declare the following:

Ubiquitous Healthy Cities” does not mean the mere application of e-based healthcare, but achievement of the highest attainable accessibility to health information, activities and basic healthcare services for all citizens. We hereby propose information and communication technology as a solution to resolve the emerging and traditional health issues in our society by:

- Providing ubiquitous information on the social determinants of health to empower citizens to gain control and enhance capacity for health.

- Improving access to supportive environment and information for health to reduce health inequity and digital divide.

- Improving the quality of and access to healthcare services, particularly preventive health services to vulnerable groups and the aged population.

- Establishing a systematic database for health data management including data reflecting the determinants of health, and an effective emergency healthcare system.

- Use the Healthy Cities framework to prepare cities to face the challenges of emerging health crisis.

- Sharing mutual experiences and expanding the Healthy Cities Movement.

We, the leaders of cities, towns, communities, private sectors, NGOs and the academia, reaffirm our commitment towards building healthy cities and, by working in partnership, commit the following:

1. Expand the use of information and communication technology and develop social, environmental, economic programmes and local infrastructure to build healthier cities.

2. Develop effective and affordable healthcare technology to reduce health inequity.

3. Encourage mutual learning by exchanging experiences in creating ubiquitous healthy cities.

4. Support the outcomes of healthy cities to contribute in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

5. Promote environmentally sustainable transport measures and options to minimize pollution and public health impacts.

6. Comprehensive evaluation of healthy cities programmes using the SPIRIT framework.

(http://www.alliance-healthycities.com/htmls/event/index_event.html)