Urban Health

Cities are considered the primary contributors to global environmental change and human development, being at the centre of leading mitigation and adaptation strategies that could promote human health along with environmental sustainability. Given the transdisciplinary approach of Urban Health, challenges faced within this field are also common to other areas and consequently, solutions proposed from the Urban Health perspective could also promote advancement beyond its discipline.

The SALURBAL project (Urban Health for Latin American cities) is a five-year project based at the Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University, and with partners throughout Latin America and in the United States that studies how urban environments and urban policies impact the health of residents from almost 370 cities in 11 Latin American countries.

To pursue this goal, the SALURBAL project 1) has systematized a process for city definition and operationalization that integrates multiple ways in which a city can be delimited; 2) has created a data structure that allowed the incorporation of data from different sources, making it shareable across several cores and disciplines; and 3) has developed procedures and standards that systematically documented issues related to data access, quality, and completeness during the process of data harmonization.

The case study will explore and further refine this approach to provide recommendations for urban health data that reflect the FAIR and CARE principles and contribute to promote best practices in data sharing and use within and beyond the Urban Health field.

Partner

Work Package Lead

Ana Ortigoza, Drexel University

Urban Health Featured Outputs

Urban Health Data – Guidelines And Recommendations

This report assessed the implementation of FAIR principles within the Urban Health field through two case studies. Then it focuses on the data collection and harmonisation process of health survey data. This allowed the elaboration of consensus on terminologies and procedures that facilitates the use of survey health data in cities for research and action.