Call for Contributions: Visualising Health Equity for Urban Planning

Cities & Health, in partnership with the Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL), announces a new Special Issue dedicated to the transformative role of visualisation in tackling health inequities through urban planning.

🌍 Why now?

Across European cities, life expectancy can differ by more than eight years between neighborhoods. Such disparities are not only avoidable – they are unjust. The special issue, led by guest editor Prof. Dr. Martin Knöll (Technical University of Darmstadt), calls for innovative contributions that address how visual tools can better represent these inequalities and support more equitable urban environments.

🎯 What’s the focus?

Visualising health equity means more than just producing data maps. It’s about using images – diagrams, drawings, digital renderings, models, photography, VR, or AI-generated visuals – to make invisible inequalities visible and actionable. These visualizations can:

• Clarify complex spatial health dynamics
• Guide inclusive planning decisions
• Build public and policy awareness
• Bridge disciplinary gaps between health and planning
• Foster international knowledge exchange

💡 Explore critical questions such as:

• How do we visualize social inequalities embedded in space?
• How can qualitative experiences be visualized to influence planning?
• Who owns the tools and narratives behind visualizations?
• How can innovation like AI and VR be harnessed responsibly?

📅 Submission Details

• Manuscript deadline: 1 November 2025
• Submission Types: Scholarly articles, reflections, practice-based reports, and visually-led contributions (including image-first formats)

🧭 Who should apply?

Researchers, urban planners, public health professionals, community designers, architects, and creatives working at the intersection of space and health equity. Contributions are encouraged from both the Global North and South to address the growing global disparities in visualization capacity.

📨 Contact & Submission 

Interested contributors are invited to contact the lead editor: Prof. Dr. Martin Knöll
Chair, Urban Design and Planning, TU Darmstadt
📧 knoell@stadt.tu-darmstadt.de

Information on submission details can be found here: Visualising health equity for urban planning

Let your visuals speak for equity. Join the movement to make health disparities visible — and changeable.

The following examples illustrate the wide spectrum of how social inequalities in health and wellbeing are being visualized and can be instrumental in different phases of urban planning for health equity. 

Ailing Brussels – Portrait of a city where inequalities operate in a vicious circle

Screenshots from Ailing Brussels - Portrait of a city where inequalities operate in a vicious circle, By Catherine Joie – journalist, Karim Douieb – data designer @ Jetpack.AI, Quentin, Noirfalisse - producer @ Dancing Dog Productions, Antoine Sanchez - editor @ Dancing Dog Productions, Adrien Herda – Illustrator, 2022. https://bxl-malade.medor.coop/?lang=en

Visualizing Health Equity – One Size Does Not Fit All: Infographics

Visualizing Health Equity: One Size Does Not Fit All Infographic: Original (2017, above) and two updated versions from 2022, below, reworked based on user feedback. https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/our-research/infographics/visualizing-health-equity.html#0

Exploring the use of digital models in architectural education

The usage of digital models in architectural education. Credit: digiLearnbim research group, 2022. Pilot, Andreas, ‘Built Together! Digital Models and Teaching Team Play´, in: Meister, Anna-Maria; Fankhänel Teresa; Beißwänger, Lisa; Dähne, Chris; Fülscher, Christiane,; Schubert, Anna Luise (eds.), Are you a Model - On an Architectural Medium of Spatial Exploration, Jovis, Berlin, 2024.