The health challenges and opportunites poised by urbanization, the physical growth of urban areas and process by which rural areas become urban, were highlighted at various events throughout the UN Summit which has made this year’s World Heart Day theme, One World, One Home, One Heart, truly symbolic.

Celebrated annually on 29 September, World Heart Day is a platform for partnerships to develop around the issue of cardiovascular disease. For CVD prevention and control, this means looking at the ways in which policy impacts our homes - whether it is the home you share with your family, your city, town or village, your country or your region. As our advocacy work to date has made clear, and as the UN Political Declaration recognized, the external environment plays a critical role in the choices we are able to make and the choices that our children make. Whether your child has a safe playground to go to, or you have access to fruits and vegetables in your neighbourhood, are circumstances that are many times determined by policy rather than by individual choice.

As we move forward, we will continue to build our advocacy capacity to ensure that heart healthy choices are made at all levels from the local to the international and that policies are constructed that provide the individual with the opportunity to make healthy choices. The key role of urban planning and development for the prevention and control of CVD will be highlighted in an upcoming publication by the World Heart Federation. Read the association press release and keep an eye out!