Review of the "City Health Profiles" produced by WHO-Healthy Cities--do they present information on health and its determinants and what are their perceived benefits?

The Healthy Cities Project (HCP) builds on the WHO definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and has become an important WHO vehicle for promoting Health For All strategy at a local level. One of the requirements to be designated a “Healthy City” is to produce a City Health Profile (CHP), bringing together key information on health and its determinants. This would form the basis of a City Health Plan setting out strategies and intervention programmes to improve the population’s health. The WHO publication “City Health Profiles: how to report on health in your city” (produced by the WHO-CHP Technical Group following consultations with primary users) oVered guidance on producing profiles. In 1996 a review of 21 CHPs was undertaken to examine whether they described health and its determinants. As CHPs were a requirement to be designated a “healthy city” the review also examined whether the Healthy Cities coordinators observed any benefits other than fulfilling the requirement for designation.