Request for Proposals: Developing a Guide for Urban Health Observatories
Since 2011, WKC has been conducting research and consultations on Urban Health Observatories (UHOs) as a potential institutional approach to improving the availability and use of local urban-level data for research, policy and practice to promote equity in health in urban settings.
Several milestones have been achieved so far. WKC organized an Expert Meeting on Urban Health Metrics in Kobe in February 2011, during which the experts recommended a comparative study of existing UHOs to identify good practices and to develop a guiding framework for UHOs. Subsequently, WKC undertook this research with the Belo Horizonte Observatory for Urban Health. The outcome of this research was recently published in the Journal of Urban Health.
In August 2012, WKC organized a Consultation Meeting on Local Urban Health Observatories in Amsterdam with an international group of scientific experts and representatives of international organizations and regional and local public health observatories. Based on the aforementioned research findings, the resulting UHO framework, and other inputs shared during the meeting, the expert group recommended that WHO continue with this work and develop a policy brief on the subject as well as a guide for UHOs. The experts identified several issues that would be important to address in a guide on establishing and sustaining UHOs; suggested a rough outline for the guide; and provided recommendations on the format and dissemination strategy for the guide.
Since then, the policy brief has been developed by WKC. Most recently, in September 2013, WKC organized a symposium at the International Conference on Urban Dynamics and Health in Paris, with current and former Directors of Urban Health Observatories in Barcelona, Belo Horizonte, London, and Strasbourg, respectively, as panellists. These panellists and other meeting participants expressed their support for the development of a WHO Guide for UHOs.
This Request for Proposals (RFP) seeks to identify a qualified professional (or team of professionals) to undertake the production of a guide for establishing, operating, and sustaining an Urban Health Observatory at a local government level, building upon the work that WKC and its collaborators have already achieved on this subject, and taking into consideration the recommendations and outputs from the consultation meeting in Amsterdam in 2012. The resulting Guide can be a valuable form of technical guidance which currently does not exist for WHO Member States and its constituents, especially at the local government level.
The deadline for submission is 10 November 2013.
Request for Proposals: Developing a Guide for Urban Health Observatories