Description of Urban Areas

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Description of Urban Areas

• Wolfgang Hellmeier, NRW Institute for Health and
  Work
• North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

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Contents

• Our subject Urban Health in Europe
• Requirements and Consequences for the definition
  of urban areas?
• Existing definitions of Urban Area (UA)
• Literature - expert interviews
• Definition of Urban Area in the project
• What we did
• Summary

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Our subject Urban health in Europe

• Urban Health Health that is specific to urban
  areas
• Special population groups urban
  population(e.g. more elderly people, more
  migrants)
• Greater risk of infectious diseases due to -
  population density - contact to foreigners
• High prevalence of diseases caused by urban
  lifestyle(e.g. early smoking, drug use)
• Availability of an urban health system (e.g.
  better access to health services)

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Our subject Urban health in Europe

• We want to define and identify areas,
• That have to deal with urban health problems
• Which can be addressed by health policy as a
  region(in own responsibility or from national
  level)
• Where data are available for
• Description of the health situation
• Identification of health problems
• Evaluation of health programmes
• In all MS of the European Union

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Existing definitions of urban areasLiterature
review

• There are many definitions of urban areas,
• but
• All of them are constructed for a specific field
  of research
• None of them is suitable for the description and
  improvement of urban health in the EU

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Existing definitions of urban areasLiterature
review

• Examples
• Urban Areas may be
• Big cities with more than a fixed number of
  inhabitants
• No surrounding regions (with urban health
  problems)
• No coverage of all parts of EU
• Regions with a common infrastructure (e.g. public
  transport)
• No corresponding administrative boundaries
• No statistical data no political authority
• Regions with a certain density of buildings
• Too big (some states are nearly completely urban)
• Not necessarily linked to urban health problems

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Existing definitions of urban areasLiterature
review

• Examples
• EU-definition of regional hierarchies (NUTS)
• No link to political responsibility
• Variation about EU is very large
• Networks of cities working on common goals
• No definition of urban area given
• Cities join a network if there interested in the
  goal
• EU-project Urban Audit
• Collection of statistical data on cities and
  their surrounding counties throughout EU ()
• Members do not necessarily suffer from urban
  health problems
• Different area-definitions between states

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Existing definitions of urban areasexpert
interviews

• Experts in all MS were asked
• Which cities do you want to see in URHIS?
• Which agglomerations do you want to see in URHIS?
• Please give a short comment on your selection
• Expert interviews aimed on
• But identification of areas, where
• Urban health problems exist
• Data on health problems are available
• Political actions for the area can be taken
• No theoretical definition of urban areas

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Existing definitions of urban areasexpert
interviews

• Results of expert interviews
• Answers from 10 MS were received
• 18 urban areas where defined
• 7 cities
• 11 agglomerations (cluster of cities / cities and
  their surroundings)
• Common features and differences
• No theoretical definition covers all proposed UA
• Selection of UAs is linked to situation in the UA
  and to that in the surrounding areas

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Decision in the URHIS-Project

• To get a coverage of all MS and
• To find relevant urban areas
• URHIS decided
• To ask national representatives to name their
  urban areas (it was up to them to select cities
  or agglomerations)
• To fix a number of UAs per country linked to
  population size
• Number of Urban areas per country
• Less than 5 million inhabitants ? 1 urban area
• Between 5 20 million inhabitants ? 2 urban
  areas
• Between 20 60 million inhabitants ? 3 urban
  areas
• 60 millions or more inhabitants ? 4 urban areas

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Summary

• One and only one theoretical definition of urban
  areas for all purposes seems to be impossible
  (different scientific fields need different
  definitions)
• One general definition of urban areas for URHIS
  throughout all MS of EU seems to be
  inappropriate(the variation between the MS is
  too large)
• Prevalence of urban health problems in an area
  does not only depend on the situation within the
  urban area but also on the surrounding regions
  and the country
• Subjective country-specific selection of urban
  areas under certain constraints
• seems to be optimal for good results of a
  project

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• Thank your for your attention
• presentation is open for discussion