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CityWave: Citizen science tool for healthy and inclusive living environments

CityWave: A data-driven and citizen science tool for municipalities to create healthy and inclusive living environments

Research line: Tailored Lifestyle: an integrated data-driven approach to lifestyle and living environment // Preserving Health
Funding Scheme: Health~Holland (Top Sector LSH) PPP Call 2025 – Tailored Lifestyle programme

Healthy and socially cohesive living environments are essential for supporting healthy lifestyles and reducing social and health inequalities. However, meaningfully engaging residents in the design and policy processes that shape these environments remains challenging. Traditional face-to-face meetings and surveys are time-consuming and often attract a limited group of “usual participants”, meaning municipalities lack a rapid and effective way to capture the views of diverse residents on health and neighbourhood issues.

CityWave addresses this challenge by co-designing and deploying the digital WaveData tool: a decentralised platform connecting residents from diverse backgrounds with researchers and municipalities, enabling easy, accessible, and secure participation in research and policy input.

Objectives and Route to Impact

Objectives

  • Develop and deploy the WaveData tool to connect citizens and municipalities in creating healthy and inclusive living environments.
  • Enable municipalities to engage residents from diverse backgrounds in research and policy-making processes in an accessible, rapid, and meaningful way.
  • Use the tool in two case studies (Utrecht and Ede) to generate actionable insights for improving living environments and to inform further development of the tool.

Route to impact

CityWave aims to improve how municipalities understand residents’ needs, preferences, and experiences, and to strengthen resident involvement beyond traditional engagement formats. By enabling inclusive, continuous input and building a feedback loop between citizens and policymakers, the project supports more targeted and accepted interventions—helping shape neighbourhoods that enhance health, social cohesion, and long-term equity.

Work Packages and Deliverables

Work Packages

  • WP1 (Months 1–6): Co-design and development of the WaveData tool through co-creation sessions with residents, policymakers, and academics, including iterative feedback to improve usability and inclusivity.
  • WP2 (Months 4–18): Deployment of the tool in two case studies:
    • Utrecht (De Nieuwe Defensie): consult residents in a new socioeconomically mixed neighbourhood to understand how moving to a new living environment affects lifestyle behaviours and health-related experiences over time.
    • Ede (De Enka and De Horsten): consult residents on challenges related to social cohesion, social encounters, and neighbourhood engagement to inform municipal action.
  • WP3 (Months 12–24): Evaluation of (1) user-friendliness for diverse resident groups, (2) usefulness for municipal policymakers, and (3) data quality, using focus groups and interviews and analysis of collected data.

Key Deliverables

  • WaveData tool (deliverable at Month 6).
  • Report including results of the case studies and evaluation of tool application (deliverable at Month 24).

Contribution to Collaboration

CityWave is a public–private partnership that combines academic expertise (public health, social sciences, consumer and lifestyle research), municipal practice (policy implementation and resident engagement), and technology development (tool building and potential scale-up). Co-creation is embedded throughout the project so that residents, municipalities, researchers, and developers jointly shape the tool and its use cases—supporting practical uptake and transferability beyond the two pilot municipalities.

Team

Contact

Sanne Peters — University Medical Center Utrecht

s.a.e.peters@umcutrecht.nl

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