EURO-URHIS 2 · European Urban Health Indicators Part Two: Using indicators to inform policy

Urban health is important due urbanisation and requires specific information not captured by national datasets. The EURO-URHIS (www.urhis.eu) project funded by DG SANCO, identified urban health indicators and their availability. EURO-URHIS 2 aims to develop methodology and validated tools useful to policy makers at all levels to make health gains via evidence based policy decisions for urban populations. The objectives are to collect data at UA level; provide tools for evidence based policy; develop methods for cross-sectional and longitudinal assessment for urban population health including all relevant determinants of health; validate these tools and methods by using existing population-based registries and databases; apply the tools in the field and ensuring they are easy and intuitive to use by policy makers. The data will be collected using surveys of existing sources; priorities of policy makers in terms of policies and interventions for their urban area and a lifestyle/environment individual survey. The strategy will be formulated, piloted, translated and disseminated. Data collected will be validated and analysed to develop the specific tools for policy makers to use. The meta-data collected will form the context to investigating trends in policy, major health problems and investigating the link between the two. Differences in health indicators could be compared for benchmarking and to make changes. The opinions of policy makers regarding the tools will also be evaluated. We will collaborate with policy-makers, researchers and civil society through a number of activities including consultation during the development stage, through training workshops and the conference. Dissemination will be multi-modal co-ordinated through websites in formats adapted to different user-groups. Training of doctoral and post-doctoral students will ensure future researchers interested in this expanding field. At all stages, stakeholders will be consulted.