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Isabel Mestres: At C/Can, We Believe Cities are more than Implementation Sites, they are Living Laboratories of the Health System

Isabel Mestres/LinkedIn

Jun 9, 2025, 07:52

Isabel Mestres: At C/Can, We Believe Cities are more than Implementation Sites, they are Living Laboratories of the Health System

Isabel Mestres, CEO of the City Cancer Challenge (C/Can), shared a post on LinkedIn:

“What if cities could unlock national health transformation?

Last week, I joined my dear colleague Maria F Navarro in Ciudad de México to meet with national health leaders, with one clear goal: to ensure that the progress we’ve made in León and Guanajuato through City Cancer Challenge (C/Can) doesn’t stop at the city level, but helps shape cancer care policy across Mexico.

At C/Can, we believe cities are more than implementation sites, they are living laboratories of the health system. They expose real-world gaps, break silos, and allow us to co-create system-wide solutions anchored in patient pathways, not bureaucracy.

But even when the model works, scale doesn’t happen automatically. That’s why we focus on inter-institutional alignment and work closely with national leaders to ensure that city-led success becomes national policy impact.

And if you’re curious about how C/Can’s ground-up model works, not just in Mexico, but around the world, I invite you to listen my conversation with Princess Dina Mired, a global health leader and a friend, with the special intervention Mark Middleton OAM, Icon Group CEO!

Watch the clip below. Listen to the full episode.”

Isabel Mestres emphasized the importance of translating C/Can’s city-level successes into national cancer care policies in Mexico. She underlined the role of cities as testbeds for health system innovation and highlighted ongoing collaboration with national health leaders to ensure broad policy impact.

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