Theoretical framework to develop an urban health index using built environment variables: the case of Ferrara, Italy

The quality of our habitat strongly determines the well-being of both our society and us as individuals. The Urban Health (UH) index is an emerging tool for decision-makers to bridge the disparities in the quality of life in cities. Our study assesses the quality of the built environment as a proxy for urban health and proposes a theoretical framework for constructing a UH index. We first conducted a literature review and statistical analyses to select and screen a comprehensive array of urban health indicators, and then used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to obtain the indicators’ weights and build the UH index. On applying the framework on the city of Ferrara, Italy, we obtained promising results with four interpretable principal components explaining the contextual conditions. The autocorrelation of the UH index (Moran’s I = 0. 795) demonstrated strong clustering, with very healthy urban census tracts located within the city centre and decreasing overall urban health in peripheral census tracts.