Urban environmental health indicators: appraisal and policy directives.

What are environmental health indicators? How are they defined and used by professionals involved in monitoring trends in cities and towns? How have indicators been applied at municipal and national levels by policy decision makes and practitioners to measure and monitor living conditions, health status and the effectiveness of interventions in urban areas? This review article is meant to answer these questions. It presents a review and assessment of the main developments related to environmental and housing indicators since 1990, and how they have been used to measure and monitor health and well-being. The most important programs are referenced, such as the two sets of indicators formulated and tested during the 1990s under the auspices of the World Health Organization Healthy Cities Project. Finally, a set of recommendations that warrant consideration in the immediate future are presented.