The Building Research Establishment’s international Healthy Cities Index (BRE HCI) contains 10 environment categories and 58 indicators, supported by a causal pathways framework. This was achieved through an iterative process including: stakeholder engagement, evaluating research evidence, selecting indicators and identifying data sources. We tested the index and causal pathways approach on two case study cities: Dubai and London. We found that they contributed to: raising awareness of the links between the environment and health; identifying shared responsibilities and the need to work across departmental silos; and uncovering the competing demands faced by some departments (and private sector stakeholders) as they seek to deliver health promoting environments alongside other objectives.
