[{"jcr:title":"Brazil–Netherlands consortium to transform Heliópolis school into a green space to address the climate challenge","cq:tags_0":"area-de-conhecimento:políticas-públicas/urbanismo","cq:tags_1":"centro-de-conhecimento:laborat-rio-arq--futuro-de-cidades"},{"richText":"Researchers from the Center for City Research are collaborating on a project aimed at reducing the impacts of heat waves on human health.","authorDate":"29/06/2026 08h38","author":"Leandro Steiw","madeBy":"Por","tag":"centro-de-conhecimento:laborat-rio-arq--futuro-de-cidades","title":"Brazil–Netherlands consortium to transform Heliópolis school into a green space to address the climate challenge","variant":"imagecolor"},{"jcr:title":"transparente - turquesa - vermelho"},{"themeName":"transparente - turquesa - vermelho"},{"containerType":"containerTwo"},{"jcr:title":"Grid Container Section","layout":"responsiveGrid"},{"text":"Scientific literature shows that extreme heat is a silent threat to public health. Nearly 40% of deaths during the warm season are associated with climate change caused by human activities—far more than those resulting from landslide events. However, the impacts are not evenly distributed across populations. They are greater in densely populated and vulnerable areas, where the lack of green spaces and cooling infrastructure exacerbates environmental inequalities and climate injustice. Part of the response to adapting to this new climate reality lies in applying the “green, health, and climate” approach within the school environment, one of the motivations behind the action research to be carried out at Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento Júnior Municipal Elementary School (EMEF), launched on May 8 in Heliópolis, São Paulo. Researchers from the Center for City Research – Arq.Futuro Lab at Insper (Insper Cities) are part of the GreenCare4Health consortium, led by Professors Luiz Fernando Ferraz, from the University of São Paulo (USP), and Víctor Muñoz Sanz, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. As is characteristic of Center for City Research projects, the consortium brings together a wide range of stakeholders from the local community, the third sector, and the public sector: UNAS (Union of Centers and Residents' Associations of Heliópolis and Surrounding Areas); the São Paulo City Government, through the Municipal Department of Education (SME), the Regional Department of Education (DRE), and the Executive Secretariat for Climate Change (Seclima); ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability; Hospital Sírio-Libanês; and, from the Netherlands, the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management and Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Heat Lab at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Veldacademie platform, and the Province of South Holland. The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp). The diversity and breadth of the organizations involved reflect both the complexity of the challenge and the effort required to translate research into tangible impact in cities. The project includes a pilot initiative in areas of high socio-environmental vulnerability that will transform the municipal elementary school through the use of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), with the aim of strengthening school communities in the management of healthy, climate-adapted green spaces. At the same time, the team will assess health impacts at different scales, from the citywide macro scale to the school-level micro scale, and develop self-sustaining, scalable tools to enhance quality of life and urban resilience. The Center for City Research will contribute its extensive experience in field research. According to Paulina Achurra, Institutional Coordinator of the Center for City Research and a researcher in the consortium, this is the Laboratory’s first research project funded by the leading research agencies of Brazil and the Netherlands. In 2022, Fapesp selected the project Making Green Work for Health for a Sprint program, supporting exchanges between researchers from higher education and research institutions in the state of São Paulo and international partners. The project’s principal investigator was Paulo Saldiva, coordinator of the Urban Health Initiative at the Center for City Research and professor at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine. Over the following two years, three Sprint sessions were held at the University of São Paulo, Delft University of Technology, and Insper, based on the idea that simply planting trees in urban areas is not enough—we must also ensure that urban green spaces are healthy and promote human health. This led to the question, “Who takes care of urban green spaces?” It also underscored the need to develop new governance models capable of addressing this challenge. The discussions focused on consolidating a public policy proposal based on a cross-cutting approach and implementation science. The action research to be carried out in Heliópolis emerged from this effort. Combating chronic diseases The researchers believe that access to healthy public green spaces plays both a preventive and a supportive role in combating chronic diseases, benefiting both human health and the health of the planet. The key questions are: “How can green spaces be created in already densely populated areas where no open spaces exist?” And, subsequently: “Who takes care of these spaces, and what is the social, environmental, and economic value of maintaining public, accessible, and equitable green spaces?” Since then, GreenCare4Health has focused on the impacts of extreme heat on health in densely populated and vulnerable neighborhoods, generating knowledge and developing tools to transform school infrastructure into green spaces, climate shelters, and learning environments connected to nature. Paulo Saldiva points out that numerous studies have shown that temperature extremes compromise human health, ranging from discomfort to the need for medical intervention, while also affecting mortality rates. Heat waves and cold spells, for example, contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and environmental contamination following climate-related disasters. Extreme weather events also have psychological effects on affected populations. “People die of myocardial infarction after realizing they have lost everything in a flood, and the impact of these tragedies can also lead to psychiatric disorders,” says Saldiva. Laura Janka, a researcher in the consortium, explains that the group identified the need to determine the actual impact of green spaces on health. Although this relationship is well established, it has not been measured using micro-scale data, as the consortium intends to do at EMEF Gonzaguinha, the school in Heliópolis. Another factor considered by the consortium is that access to green spaces and health is unequally distributed across urban centers, requiring solutions tailored to the specific conditions of each area. Schools and primary healthcare centers are facilities that bring people together within their communities, Laura explains. Transforming a school into a green space is therefore both a structural and a strategic intervention. “The great innovation of GreenCare4Health is treating the transformation of schools into green spaces as a living laboratory,” she says. “It will be a laboratory because we will create innovative green infrastructure and measure its impact on health. We also want to transform the governance of these spaces. It is not simply about removing pavement and planting trees, but about ensuring that these trees are available to the entire community.” Another innovative aspect of the project is its access to an extensive database on deaths and autopsies in the city of São Paulo, which will help establish links between mortality and heat waves. According to Saldiva, São Paulo—where approximately 180 people die of natural causes every day—has the world’s largest medical autopsy service. This death verification service operates at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine. “We receive a large number of vulnerable individuals who, by court order, are required to have the cause of death determined through an autopsy,” says the USP professor. Saldiva adds: “An autopsy is the most accurate way to identify diseases because it reveals much more than the immediate cause of death. It tells us whether the person was obese, had diabetes, had cancer, was elderly, bedridden, and so on. The autopsy report also records the deceased’s ZIP code and includes an interview with a family member. This allows us to map thermal vulnerability based on the quality of these mortality data.” Public policy for the future EMEF Gonzaguinha is one of approximately 500 municipal elementary schools across the city of São Paulo, each with distinct physical, geographical, topographical, and socioeconomic characteristics. Through the Urban Living Lab, the researchers aim to identify the factors that make a given area more vulnerable to heat waves and cold spells. According to Paulina, sensors will measure physical parameters related to thermal comfort—such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed—before, during, and after the intervention. The project will run for five years. The participation of Seclima (the Executive Secretariat for Climate Change), the São Paulo Municipal Department of Education, and the Ipiranga Regional Department of Education creates the opportunity to scale up the project and apply its lessons to other areas of the city. Laura explains: “We believe that green spaces will bring the community together and have a significant impact on people’s lives. The metrics generated by this pilot project could inform future municipal public policy. Perhaps many—or even all—schools could eventually be transformed into microforests.” This is also the expectation of Marília de Santis, principal of EMEF Gonzaguinha and a member of the Women and Territories Initiative at the Center for City Research. “I believe that all the knowledge generated in underserved communities with the support of academia will lead to meaningful change because we are finally managing to produce science and build knowledge within the favela with the participation of the people who live there,” says Marília. “We are looking at these communities not only as places with unmet needs, but also as places rich in knowledge.” The principal points out that EMEF Gonzaguinha is a 35-year-old public school whose facilities are no longer adequate to provide thermal comfort for its 1,200 students. At the same time, it is located in Heliópolis, a community with high levels of social vulnerability that is widely recognized for its strong capacity for mobilization and community organization. Over the years, in order to address challenges related to managing the school grounds and delivering services, the school has built close partnerships with civil society organizations, community leaders, and academia. “Together with this combination of universities and government departments, this action research process will be extremely important in helping us better understand our challenges and overcome some of them,” Marília emphasizes. For Laura, Heliópolis is a community shaped by both struggle and achievement. The school itself is just one of many public facilities that have emerged through the community’s long history of civic engagement. “Heliópolis sees itself as an educating territory, so we want green spaces to become another means of building a more engaged, safer, and more collaborative society,” she says. According to Paulina, the experience of the Center for City Research will be highly valuable for Insper, as the project will support technical fellowships as well as doctoral, postdoctoral, and undergraduate research scholarships. As a result, GreenCare4Health will also have a positive impact on the education of the school's students who participate in the action research."},{"jcr:title":"EMEF Gonzaguinha","alt":"EMEF Gonzaguinha"}]