Addressing Inequities in Urban Health: Do Decision-Makers Have the Data They Need?

Abstract

Rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation across low and middle-income countries is leading to ever expanding numbers of urban poor, defined here as slum dwellers and the homeless. It is estimated that 828 million people are currently living in slum conditions. If governments, donors and NGOs are to respond to these growing inequities they need data that adequately represents the needs of the urban poorest as well as others across the socio-economic spectrum. The authors report on the findings of a special session held at the International Conference on Urban Health, Dhaka 2015. They present an overview of the need for data on urban health for planning and allocating resources to address urban inequities. Such data needs to provide information on differences between urban and rural areas nationally, between and within urban communities. They discuss the limitations of data most commonly available to national and municipality level government, donor and NGO staff. In particular they assess, with reference to the WHO’s Urban HEART tool, the challenges in the design of household surveys in understanding urban health inequities. This work is supported by the Department for International Development’s COMDIS–HSD Programme which is led by the University of Leeds