Quantifying the urban environment: A scale measure of urbanicity outperforms the urban–rural dichotomy

Abstract

The rapid urbanization of the developing world has important consequences for human health. Although several authorities have called for better research on the relationships between urbanicity and health, most researchers still use a poor measurement of urbanicity, the urban-rural dichotomy. Our goal was to construct a scale of urbanicity using community level data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey. We used established scale development methods to validate the new measure and tested its performance against the dichotomy. The new scale illustrated misclassification by the urban-rural dichotomy, and was able to detect differences in urbanicity, both between communities and across time, that were not apparent before. Furthermore, using a continuous measure of urbanicity allowed for better illustrations of the relationships between urbanicity and health. The new scale is a better measure of urbanicity than the traditionally used urban-rural dichotomy.

Level of urbanization and noncommunicable disease risk factors in Tamil Nadu, India

“…It was conducted in three steps: (i) constructing a measure of urbanicity using a validated scale 8 based on data from the Census of India 2001; (ii) calculating the prevalence of NCD risk factors in seven study areas in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, by using data from an NCD risk factor surveillance survey conducted locally in 2003-2004 as part of a larger study 9 ; and (iii) testing for an association between urbanicity and the prevalence of NCD risk factors in the study areas.…”

“…An existing composite continuous measure of urbanicity previously used and validated for the Philippines by Dahly and Adair 8,10 was identified through an earlier systematic review. 11 It comprised seven elements: population size, population density, access to markets, communications, transport, education and health services.…”

Impact of Population Growth on the Water Quality of Natural Water Bodies

“…When categorized, with the most similar regions in one group according to density, it is easier to understand the impact of urbanization, rather than comparing the effect of the individual population in each region [1]. One of the crucial factors in defining the urbanization level is the population size and the density [25]. Therefore, considering the population distribution shown in Table 1, the five watersheds in Kelani River were classified into three categories as urbanized level one (UL1), which has a higher population, urbanized level two (UL2) which has intermediate population, and urbanized level three (UL3) which has lower population.…”

Quantifying Urbanization as a Risk Factor for Noncommunicable Disease

“…This review demonstrated the paucity of multi component measures of urbanization as a risk factor for NCDs and established the need for a measure of urbanization sensitive enough to track changes in urbanicity and subsequent emergence of chronic diseases or their risk factors. 24 Mendez and Popkin 25 created one of the few multicomponent measures which included ten components: population size, population density, access to markets, transportation, communications/media, economic factors, environment/sanitation, health, education, and housing quality. Dahly and Adair 24 refined this tool into a multivariable scale and Allender et al 26 tested the feasibility of using this scale in Southern India.…”