Introduction
From 2007, more than half of the world’s population will be living in cities. The health needs of urban dwellers, and the ability to monitor urban health will become a high priority. The EU Public Health Programme work plan 2005 identified the development of an urban health indicator system as an essential part of a comprehensive and integrated EU health information and knowledge system. Based on this, and all the previous work funded by the EU, such as ECHI, ISARE, ECHIM and others, a group led by the University of Manchester, UK, has started work on the development of a system of urban health indicators.