TY - JOUR
T1 - Roundtable on urban living environment research (RULER)
AU - Vlahov, David
AU - Agarwal, Siddharth Raj
AU - Buckley, Robert M.
AU - Caiaffa, Waleska Teixeira
AU - Corvalan, Carlos F.
AU - Ezeh, Alex Chika
AU - Finkelstein, Ruth
AU - Friel, Sharon
AU - Harpham, Trudy
AU - Hossain, Maharufa
AU - De Faria Leao, Beatriz
AU - Mboup, Gora
AU - Montgomery, Mark R.
AU - Netherland, Julie C.
AU - Ompad, Danielle C.
AU - Prasad, Amit
AU - Quinn, Andrew T.
AU - Rothman, Alexander
AU - Satterthwaite, David E.
AU - Stansfield, Sally
AU - Watson, Vanessa J.
N1 - Funding Information:
With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IHME has projects on health metrics that include Burden of Disease, Malaria, Disease Control, and the “Population Health Metrics Research Consortium Project.” The latter is a multi-institutional project whose goal is to improve strategies for population health measurement and produce instruments that are science-based, standardized, and widely applicable across different resource-poor settings; to provide data and resources that will be the basis for rapid and effective field assessment of population prevalence of specific diseases and causes of death; and to enable policymakers and researchers to address persistent inequities in health outcomes in both the developed and the developing world. Activities include developing methods to measure mortality where vital registration methods are incomplete, to measure cause-specific mortality where cause of death coding is incomplete, to measure prevalence and incidence of major diseases, and to measure effective delivery of priority health interventions.
PY - 2011/10
Y1 - 2011/10
N2 - For 18 months in 2009-2010, the Rockefeller Foundation provided support to establish the Roundtable on Urban Living Environment Research (RULER). Composed of leading experts in population health measurement from a variety of disciplines, sectors, and continents, RULER met for the purpose of reviewing existing methods of measurement for urban health in the context of recent reports from UN agencies on health inequities in urban settings. The audience for this report was identified as international, national, and local governing bodies; civil society; and donor agencies. The goal of the report was to identify gaps in measurement that must be filled in order to assess and evaluate population health in urban settings, especially in informal settlements (or slums) in low- and middle-income countries. Care must be taken to integrate recommendations with existing platforms (e.g., Health Metrics Network, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) that could incorporate, mature, and sustain efforts to address these gaps and promote effective data for healthy urban management. RULER noted that these existing platforms focus primarily on health outcomes and systems, mainly at the national level. Although substantial reviews of health outcomes and health service measures had been conducted elsewhere, such reviews covered these in an aggregate and perhaps misleading way. For example, some spatial aspects of health inequities, such as those pointed to in the 2008 report from the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, received limited attention. If RULER were to focus on health inequities in the urban environment, access to disaggregated data was a priority. RULER observed that some urban health metrics were already available, if not always appreciated and utilized in ongoing efforts (e.g., census data with granular data on households, water, and sanitation but with little attention paid to the spatial dimensions of these data). Other less obvious elements had not exploited the gains realized in spatial measurement technology and techniques (e.g., defining geographic and social urban informal settlement boundaries, classification of population-based amenities and hazards, and innovative spatial measurement of local governance for health). In summary, the RULER team identified three major areas for enhancing measurement to motivate action for urban health - namely, disaggregation of geographic areas for intra-urban risk assessment and action, measures for both social environment and governance, and measures for a better understanding of the implications of the physical (e.g., climate) and built environment for health. The challenge of addressing these elements in resource-poor settings was acknowledged, as was the intensely political nature of urban health metrics. The RULER team went further to identify existing global health metrics structures that could serve as platforms for more granular metrics specific for urban settings.
AB - For 18 months in 2009-2010, the Rockefeller Foundation provided support to establish the Roundtable on Urban Living Environment Research (RULER). Composed of leading experts in population health measurement from a variety of disciplines, sectors, and continents, RULER met for the purpose of reviewing existing methods of measurement for urban health in the context of recent reports from UN agencies on health inequities in urban settings. The audience for this report was identified as international, national, and local governing bodies; civil society; and donor agencies. The goal of the report was to identify gaps in measurement that must be filled in order to assess and evaluate population health in urban settings, especially in informal settlements (or slums) in low- and middle-income countries. Care must be taken to integrate recommendations with existing platforms (e.g., Health Metrics Network, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) that could incorporate, mature, and sustain efforts to address these gaps and promote effective data for healthy urban management. RULER noted that these existing platforms focus primarily on health outcomes and systems, mainly at the national level. Although substantial reviews of health outcomes and health service measures had been conducted elsewhere, such reviews covered these in an aggregate and perhaps misleading way. For example, some spatial aspects of health inequities, such as those pointed to in the 2008 report from the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, received limited attention. If RULER were to focus on health inequities in the urban environment, access to disaggregated data was a priority. RULER observed that some urban health metrics were already available, if not always appreciated and utilized in ongoing efforts (e.g., census data with granular data on households, water, and sanitation but with little attention paid to the spatial dimensions of these data). Other less obvious elements had not exploited the gains realized in spatial measurement technology and techniques (e.g., defining geographic and social urban informal settlement boundaries, classification of population-based amenities and hazards, and innovative spatial measurement of local governance for health). In summary, the RULER team identified three major areas for enhancing measurement to motivate action for urban health - namely, disaggregation of geographic areas for intra-urban risk assessment and action, measures for both social environment and governance, and measures for a better understanding of the implications of the physical (e.g., climate) and built environment for health. The challenge of addressing these elements in resource-poor settings was acknowledged, as was the intensely political nature of urban health metrics. The RULER team went further to identify existing global health metrics structures that could serve as platforms for more granular metrics specific for urban settings.
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U2 - 10.1007/s11524-011-9613-2
DO - 10.1007/s11524-011-9613-2
M3 - Review article
C2 - 21910089
AN - SCOPUS:84855332310
SN - 1099-3460
VL - 88
SP - 793
EP - 857
JO - Journal of Urban Health
JF - Journal of Urban Health
IS - 5
ER -