Resilient Cities, Reimagining Health: Making the Case for Prevention

Thu Sep 25, 2025 2:30 p.m.—3:45 p.m.
Research to Impact

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There is an urgent need to transition away from a top-down, treatment-based model to a more holistic approach with greater emphasis on prevention.

Resilient Cities, Reimagining Health. Big change needs bold allies.

Climate change is intensifying critical public health challenges and adding pressure to health systems, with vulnerable and low-income communities bearing the greatest burden. There is an urgent need to transition away from a top-down, treatment-based model to a more holistic approach with greater emphasis on prevention. Cities play a key role in advancing preventive approaches to support health in a changing climate, build resilience, and decarbonize health systems. 

We will release the first report of the ‘Resilient Cities, Reimagining Health’ initiative which demonstrates the need for place-based, climate-sensitive, preventive health approaches. Through structured review and economic analysis, we provide quantitative evidence on how climate will impact public health needs; key interventions to improve health, reduce costs and emissions, build equity and resilience; and a high-level framework for successful, city-led capacity building and implementation. 

This event, hosted by Reckitt and Bupa, on behalf of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, the Resilient Cities Network, and Yale School of Public Health, brings together key stakeholders, including city representatives, public health and climate experts, funders and the private sector to launch this ‘Case for Action’ and build the roadmap to implementation at scale.

Location: Tap Room

Panelists

  • Jeannette Ickovics

    Samuel and Liselotte Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health

  • Marina Romanello

    Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change; University College London

  • Ashwin Vasan

    Former Commissioner of Health, City of New York; Lecturer and Senior Fellow, Yale School of Public Health

  • Gislani Mateus

    Municipal Superintendent of Health Surveillance, Rio de Janeiro

  • Emilia Carrera

    Rockefeller Foundation

  • Ana Mendívil

    Director of Climate Change, Mexico City  

Facilitated By

Hosts

About the Panelists

Superintendent of Health Surveillance at the Municipal Health Department of Rio de Janeiro.

Gislani has worked in public health in the city of Rio de Janeiro for 16 years. She founded and directed the city’s Epidemiological Intelligence Center (CIE) — the first of its kind in Brazil. She participated in the COVID-19 Emergency Operations Center (COE) for the city of Rio and coordinated the Emergency Operations Center for the 2024 Dengue Epidemic in Rio de Janeiro.

She is one of the lead organizers of Rio de Janeiro’s Extreme Heat Response Protocol, launched in 2024 — the first heat response protocol in the country — and serves on the city’s Extreme Heat Response Committee. Gislani also co-authored the city’s Contingency Plan for Preparedness, Alerts, and Response to Natural Disasters and has been directly involved in rapid response operations for major natural disasters, including severe floods, landslides, and wildfires in Rio over the years.

She holds a nursing degree from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), is a public health specialist, and earned a master’s degree in Public Health from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz). 

Throughout her career, she has held key leadership roles in Primary Health Care and in the Health Planning and Management Divisions of Rio’s health system, focusing on health information, monitoring, evaluation, and surveillance. She has also served as a consultant for Brazil’s Ministry of Health, specializing in epidemiological intelligence and health surveillance

Jeannette R. Ickovics is the Samuel and Liselotte Herman Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She served as Dean of Faculty at Yale-NUS College in Singapore from 2018-2021, responsible for faculty development and curriculum across the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. At the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Ickovics was Founding Director of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Public Health (2002-2012) and Founding Director of CARE: Community Alliance for Research and Engagement as part of Yale’s inaugural Clinical and Translational Science Award (2007-2017). She was also Deputy Director for the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS where she was Director of an NIH training program for pre- and post- doctoral fellows for 15 years (now in its 24th year).

Ana Mendívil holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and a specialization in Environmental Law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, in Spanish); she has three Master’s degrees in Energy and Environmental Policy and Management, in Climate Change and Biodiversity, and in Public Management for Good Administration, and is a PhD candidate in Sustainability Sciences. 

She has 15 years of experience in the design, planning, and execution of environmental and climate action policies and projects. She has collaborated with several NGOs and consultant agencies in Mexico, with the Inter-American Development Bank, the German Development Cooperation Agency and the Government of Mexico in the design of legal, planning and financial instruments and projects for environmental protection, climate action, transparency and social inclusion. 

She has served as an advisor to the Mexican Government and a representative of civil society during the UNFCCC and has been a professor at the UNAM-Faculty of Sciences on environmental policy. She currently works at the Ministry of the Environment of the Government of Mexico City, where she was Coordinator of the Climate Action Program and, later, Deputy Director of Climate Change. 

Currently, she is the Director of Climate Change and Sustainable Projects, responsible for the coordination and monitoring of the City’s Climate Policy, and the development of the Climate Action Program, as well as the implementation of mitigation, adaptation and resilience projects and policy instruments, and the mainstreaming of human rights, inclusion, gender equity, and just transition.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.