Areas of particular interest during WIS 2012 conference include, but are not limited to:

• e-Health
• Urban planning for health and sustainable development
• Measuring and documenting health and well-being
• Empowering and educating citizens for healthy living and equal opportunities
• Governance for health
• Safe and secure cities

e-Health
Internet and other network solutions impact the life of every city and city dweller. The track looks for papers that document and study interactions in the cyberspace that enhance healthy living, or alternatively risk it. Especially contributions looking at the ways how social media in various forms is used in health enhancement are welcomed. Both population and individual health can too be enhanced through traditional media and broadcasting solutions, that also belong to this track.

• Persuasive and reward systems for advancing health
• Health and city portals
• Personal health records
• e-consultation practices
• Social media applications in advancing health

Urban planning for health and sustainable development
Urban planning and public health share common perspectives. Both focus on human well-being and quality of life, emphasize needs assessment and service delivery and rely on community based participatory methods. These determinants combined together affect the health of communities. The social, economic and physical environment together with individual characteristics and behaviours, all have significant impacts on health. Finding the right balance between social, environmental and economic factors should be supported by assuring the performance and advancement of innovative best practices. Healthy urban planning is about planning for people. Papers are welcomed in the fields of:

• Sustainable urban mobility
• Sustainable human settlements
• Quality of life in city planning
• Stakeholder involvement
• Interoperability
• Accessibility in urban areas
• Environmental performance standards
• Individual perspective in urban planning

Measuring and documenting health and well-being
Promoting well-being is a communicable process, not only prevention of illness. New and innovative ways and experiences are needed to describe the improvement of health in the community, city and global levels. This requires, among other things, more effective use of health record entries in developing health services.The track looks for papers on:

• Health impact assessment
• Effective use of health data in service development
• The undisclosed dimensions of well-being
• Benchmarking cities and areas in well-being
• Well-being in popular and mass media

Empowering and educating citizens for healthy living and equal opportunities
A lot of interventions to promote health and well-being is going on worldwide. People are challenged to take more responsibility in their own lifestyle choices. The focus should be on strengthening the resources and empowerment of people - not only avoiding risks. A special attention should be on the most vulnerable groups. Well-being is a broad concept which involves many sectors and actors in the city and in the wider society. For the integration of well-being as a multi-sectoral issue, capacity development is needed both at the individual and organisational levels to promote lifelong learning and well-being:

• Campaigning for healthy lifestyles
• Health-related education challenges
• Active citizenship through local democracy
• Awareness raising through active participation
• Salutogenesis
• Curriculum development for health promotion
• Capacity building for health literacy
• Equity and social well-being

Governance for health
The track is interested in research and practical contributions on how governance in various forms affect health. Governance is connected with long term, strategic goals and distributions of responsibilities and power between different units, mainly organizations and political decision makers. Especially cases where bad governance is a hinder for enhancing health are welcomed, as well as theoretical contributions on governance issues in health.

• e-Government health applications
• Public-private partnerships in delivering health
• Population health management systems
• Sourcing practices in health care industry
• Legislation and regulation for health care industry
• Market functioning and transparency in health care

Safe and secure cities
City life manifests itself in real life, on the streets, markets and parks of cities, as well as in the cyperspace, which offers a “second life” for many modern citizens, especially the young ones. The track on secure cities looks for threats and solutions to security problems both in real and virtual worlds. Issues such as prime prevention, emergency activities in cities, and data privacy and security belong to this track.

• Emergence and epidemic management systems
• Crime prevention
• Urban planning for safe cities
• Cross-agency co-operation in delivering urban safety
• Public premises safety
• Occupational safety of workers in public premises

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