Assessing and monitoring urban resilience using COPD in Porto

Abstract

Background: COPD morbidity is a good example of how the urban form may interfere with a disease's severity. Then, it may play an important role as a stimulus to increase the acceptability of several policy actions that aim to upgrade urban resilience. Despite the multiple dimensions of wellbeing, health is surely a key variable attracting everyone's attention, which is thus more likely to be able to persuade people that actions that may at first seem undesirable are fundamental in improving urban sustainability and well-being. Methods: After creating a short list of socio-economic and environmental factors relating to the onset and aggravation of COPD, daily admissions distributions were compared using both a non-weighted and a weighted multi-criteria hierarchical analysis procedure. Results: Porto's COPD Social and Environmental Inequalities Index (SEII), calculated with a hierarchical analysis procedure, accurately illustrates a great relationship between COPD admissions and adverse urban form variables. Conclusion: COPD may be an important communication tool to stimulate the acceptability of some otherwise unpopular planning measures to improve urban resilience (sustainability and well-being). © 2011 Elsevier B.V.