Report of Consultation Meeting on Urban Health Metrics Research

 In collaboration with a wide network of partners including city and national officials, international organizations, researchers, and civil society representatives, the World Health Organization Kobe Centre (WKC), based in Japan, seeks to develop improved measures and methods to enhance the capacity for understanding urban health problems and for guiding appropriate actions. In 2006-07, WKC served as the hub for the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings, which was one of the nine knowledge networks supporting the work of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. The findings from this network elucidated the complex web of determinants of urban health and the actions needed to address them.3 In order to facilitate such actions, particularly at the local government level, WKC subsequently developed the Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART).4 A key principle of this priority-setting tool is that rational action to address health and health inequity in cities requires sound evidence.

This meeting was convened in recognition of the need to improve urban health metrics to meet the health and equity concerns of an increasingly urban global population, and the substantial expertise and momentum that now exist to take this task forward. Building upon the prior work of relevant research collaborations, namely the Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity and the Roundtable on Urban Living Environment Research, the aim was to bring together experts in health, urban studies, and metrics from different levels of government, organizational background and geographic representation, in order to explore pathways to further advance research on urban health metrics.

Objectives
• To share information about key initiatives and stakeholders in developing urban health metrics.
• To review the challenges and opportunities for developing urban health metrics.
• To develop recommendations on specific issues related to improving urban health
metrics for action.

Expected Outcomes
• Exchange of information on key initiatives and stakeholders relevant to urban health metrics development.
• Identification of challenges and opportunities for developing urban health metrics.
• A set of recommendations on improving the availability, quality and application
of urban health data, including a recommendation on developing a unitary global urban health index.