Health Profile: Oslo, Norway

Oslo is one of the urban areas chosen for EURO-URHIS 2 (European Urban Health Indicator System Part 2), a project that aims to identify health problems in urban areas. The EURO-URHIS 2 project describes health and health determinants specific to urban areas in Europe, covering cities in North, East, South, and West Europe. This project may add to information that is already locally available, in that it is the first study to enable reliable comparisons of health status between different cities in Europe. Policy makers can use the information to prioritise topics for urban health policy and for interventions in an evidence-based way.EURO-URHIS 2 gathered information by collecting data from routinely available registration data, and by conducting youth and adult surveys at the end of 2010. In total, data from 26 urban areas in Europe were available for between-city comparisons and benchmarking. The routinely available registration data relate to the most recently available year (2005-2010). The youth survey was a school-based survey of 14-16 year olds. In Oslo, 497 students completed a valid questionnaire. The adult survey was carried out involving a representative sample of adults aged 19-64 and 65+. In Oslo, 403 19-64 year olds and 435 65+ year olds completed valid questionnaires.