Rates for allergic, inflammatory and auto-immune diseases seem to rise with urbanization and are found to be higher in the more urbanized nations, which indicates that cities promote the occurrence of these diseases. A new study published in Environment International aimed to synthesize the current understanding of "urban-associated diseases" and discover the common, potentially modifiable features of cities that may be driving these associations.For this study, expertise across diverse health fields were drawn to examine the evidence for urban connections and drivers of any diseases that have been associated with cities or are particularly prominent in todays urban societies.The findings revealed urban associations across allergic, auto-immune, inflammatory, lifestyle and infectious disease categories. It was also noted that certain conditions, for instance, obesity and diabetes, have complex relationships with cities that have been insufficiently explored. Other conditions, such as allergies and asthma, have more evidence demonstrating their relationship with cities and the mechanisms driving that association. Air pollution was the characteristic of cities most frequently associated with disease. Other identified urban risk factors are not as widely known; vis, altered microbial exposure and a disconnect from environmental microbiomes, vitamin D deficiency, noise and light pollution and transient, over-crowded, impoverished population. It was concluded that identifying urban-associated diseases and their drivers can aid in preparing for the urban-disease burden of the future and create healthy cities that mitigate that disease burden.