This article examines how urbanisation is reshaping understandings, invocations and implementation of the right to health, from an individualist focus on access to medical treatment towards a more collective, solidarity-based conception. Drawing on treaty interpretation, domestic and international jurisprudence, the practice of health rights interpretation by urban local governments and soft law produced by global city networks, the article shows how cities are redefining and implementing health rights. It proceeds to identify three hallmarks of an ‘urbanised’ understanding of the right to health: a collective orientation, being grounded in mutual solidarity and depending on inclusive community participation.

Publication https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/13642987.2026.2691741?needAccess=trueavailable in open access