SynthesisBMC public health2013
Urbanisation, urbanicity, and health: a systematic review of the reliability and validity of urbanicity scales.
Synthesis in BMC public health, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The influence of urbanization on local ecological knowledge: a systematic review.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Pooled it
- Cardiovascular risk factors in Moroccan women: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- Is Population Density Associated with Non-Communicable Disease in Western Developed Countries? A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Women empowerment in reproductive health: a systematic review of measurement properties.BMC women's health · 2021Pooled it
- Gender, marital and educational inequalities in mid- to late-life depressive symptoms: cross-cohort variation and moderation by urbanicity degree.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Resilience to Climate-Induced Disasters and Its Overall Relationship to Well-Being in Southern Africa: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Pooled it
- Magnitude and pattern of hypertension in the Niger Delta: a systematic review and meta-analysis of community-based studies.Journal of global health · 2018Pooled it
- Cancer Risk Factors, Screening, and Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation Across the U.S. Urban-to-Frontier Continuum.Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs · 2026Article
- Predicting the geographical distribution of drug use disorder in Sweden from the geographical variation in social deprivation, genetic risk and urbanization.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- A Network Analysis of Built Environment Features and Depressive Symptoms over an 18-year period.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- A novel approach to incorporate frontier areas into urban-rural geographic classifications: Integrated Metropolitan-to-Frontier Area Codes.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2025Article
- Urbanization exacerbates age-associated declines in cardiometabolic health in Turkana and Orang Asli.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- "Dengue fever is not just urban or rural: Reframing its spatial categorization."Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Changes in urbanicity and household availability of and proximity to food vendors from 2004 to 2020 in a rural district of northwestern Bangladesh.Health & place · 2024Article
- Measuring Community Urbanicity and Its Influence on Household Food Security Across Nepal's Agroecological Zones.Current developments in nutrition · 2024Article
- Dynamic distribution, regional differences and convergence of health workforce allocation in township health centers in China.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Exploring the Relationship Between Education, Living Environment, and Anxiety/Depression Among Stable Patients: Insights from the COPD-AD China Registry Study.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2024Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDespite a plethora of studies examining the effect of increased urbanisation on health, no single study has systematically examined the measurement properties of scales used to measure urbanicity. It is critical to distinguish findings from studies that use surrogate measures of urbanicity (e.g. population density) from those that use measures rigorously tested for reliability and validity. The purpose of this study was to assess the measurement reliability and validity of the available urbanicity scales and identify areas where more research is needed to facilitate the development of a standardised measure of urbanicity.
methodsDatabases searched were MEDLINE with Full Text, CINAHL with Full Text, and PsycINFO (EBSCOhost) as well as Embase (Ovid) covering the period from January 1970 to April 2012. Studies included in this systematic review were those that focused on the development of an urbanicity scale with clearly defined items or the adoption of an existing scale, included at least one outcome measure related to health, published in peer-reviewed journals, the full text was available in English and tested for validity and reliability.
resultsEleven studies met our inclusion criteria which were conducted in Sri Lanka, Austria, China, Nigeria, India and Philippines. They ranged in size from 3327 to 33,404 participants. The number of scale items ranged from 7 to 12 items in 5 studies. One study measured urban area socioeconomic disadvantage instead of urbanicity. The emerging evidence is that increased urbanisation is associated with deleterious health outcomes. It is possible that increased urbanisation is also associated with access and utilisation of health services. However, urbanicity measures differed across studies, and the reliability and validity properties of the used scales were not well established.
conclusionThere is an urgent need for studies to standardise measures of urbanicity. Longitudinal cohort studies to confirm the relationship between increased urbanisation and health outcomes are urgently needed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.