Big Cities Health Inventory
Big Cities Health Inventory (BCHI) - The Health of Urban USA
US National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Metro Forum. 2007
Available online as PDF file [150p.] at: http://www.naccho.org/topics/crosscutting/documents/BCHI07COLORFINAL.pdf
“…… a compendium of health status indicators produced in a comparative format for the 54 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Data on the health of our communities are probably more widely available at this time than at any point in the past. The Internet has become a vast repository of statistics on a variety health conditions. But less progress has been made in turning these raw data into usable information, especially for the nation’s largest urban areas which face higher rates of poor health status and racial/ethnic disparities in illness and access to health care services.
Several key principles of public health practice depend on having reliable and current information regarding the health status of the community. The most obvious of these principles is evidence-based decision making and the core science of public health, epidemiology, is grounded in the collection and analysis of data.
Perhaps an even more fundamental principle is social justice and the recognition that eliminating health disparities is critical to improving the health of the overall population. For highly diverse urban populations, understanding the root causes of health disparities, including the synergistic interplay of social and environmental stressors that contribute to the erosion of resiliency in many of our nation’s urban communities, is necessary to accomplish this goal….” [posted by PAHO/WHO Equity Listserv}
In the NN/LM MCR region, cities covered include, Omaha, NE; St. Louis, MO; Denver, CO; Colorado Springs, CO; Kansas City, MO; and Witchita, KS
