A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment of Urban Health Equity Indicators (Case study: Bojnourd City)

Urban health planning is an informed process for the provision of full physical and psychological health and well-being for all inhabitants by setting health-oriented policies, creating an appropriate system of urban health planning and improving the social, economic and physical determinants of the city. The main objective of urban health planning is to provide equal access for all inhabitants to full physical, psychological and social health as well as equal access to urban health determinants. This study intends to address urban health equity and its dimensions, variables and indicators both theoretically and empirically. The current study uses a quantitative, descriptive-analytical and applied developmental research design in terms of data collection and analysis, implementation procedures and objectives, respectively. This research pursues two main objectives 1) A comprehensive understanding of the dimensions, variables and indicators of urban health equity; and, 2) an empirical evaluation of these indicators in Bojnourd city. For data collection, we conducted an extensive literature review in the case of the first objective and a combination of literature review and field survey in the case of the second objective. The data were analyzed and configured with AHP, Electre and ArcMap software tools. The results of the theoretical part of the study yielded a pattern in which urban health equity indicators were divided into two groups of outcome and determinant indicators. The results of the empirical study show that the citizens of Bojnourd city do not have equal access to urban health determinants.