Measuring Urban Health in Türkiye: A Proposal for an Urban Health Index from a Capabilities Perspective

Aim: This study aims to develop an Urban health index (UHI) for Türkiye, grounded in the "capability to be healthy" framework. Materials and Methods:Twenty-five routinely collected, publicly available provincial-level indicators were analyzed and categorized into four domains: economic, environmental conditions and services, and socio-cultural indicators.Using Microsoft Excel, the final UHI was calculated as a weighted average of 11 selected capability indicators.The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) was used as a proxy for population health.Geometric means, Spearman correlations, and Cronbach's alpha were calculated in SPSS version 31.0.Results: The 11-indicator index demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha= 0.895).Strong negative correlations were observed between U5MR and indicators such as literacy (r= -0.881), poverty (r= -0.860), household overcrowding (r= -0.764), gender norms (r= -0.742), and civic engagement (r= -0.671). Conclusion:The proposed UHI provides a novel, context-specific tool for assessing the structural and social determinants of health across Türkiye's provinces.It enables both cross-provincial comparisons and the monitoring of temporal changes in urban health, contributing to evidence-based urban policy and health equity efforts.