The SALURBAL project compiles pre-existing data from Latin American cities, countries, and regional institutions to study the ways in which urban environments in Latin America are associated with various health, equity, and environmental outcomes.

The SALURBAL data portal is a comprehensive health and exposure dataset that covers 11 countries, 371 cities, 1,436 subcities, and 246,942 neighborhoods across Latin America.

This resource includes 560 variables categorized into 5 domains—Demographics, Health Risk Factors, Mortality, Physical and Natural Environment, and Social, Economic, and Services Environment—and 36 sub-domains.

Visit the new SALURBAL data portal to learn more and explore our free data catalog!

SALURBAL acknowledges the contributions of many different agencies in generating, processing, facilitating access to data or assisting with other aspects of the project. View a list of agencies that have contributed to SALURBAL.

Learn more about SALURBAL’s data and analyses by reading the data briefs below.

Making the Invisible, Visible: Race, Racism, and Health Data

The demand for information about Afro-descendant and Indigenous populations and their living conditions—driven in large part by social movements—has been a growing and recurring issue in Latin America. Though the region still has limitations in the availability of reliable data, important efforts have taken place to advance this agenda. This brief outlines lessons learned from Latin American countries.

To advance research and action on racial/ethnic health inequities in Latin American countries, local, state, and national decision-makers must improve the collection of high-quality data on race and ethnicity and make it available to researchers and all society.

Making the Invisible, Visible: Race, Racism and Health Data (English PDF)
Hacer visible lo invisible: Lecciones de los países latinoamericanos (Español PDF)
Tornando o invisível visível: Raça, Racismo e Dados de Saúde  (Português PDF)

COVID-19 AND URBAN HEALTH IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region is one of the world regions hardest hit by the pandemic. This brief the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic using data compiled by the Salud Urbana en América Latina ("Urban Health in Latin America") project (SALURBAL). The brief includes information on the number of cases, deaths, and vaccinations reported, as well as socioeconomic inequities in these outcomes in Latin American cities. Policy approaches and actions that some cities and countries have implemented to improve data quality and reduce inequities are highlighted.

COVID-19 and Urban Health in Latin America and the Caribbean (English PDF)
COVID-19 en América Latina y el Caribe (Español PDF)
COVID-19 na América Latina e no Caribe (PDF em português)

Infant Mortality in Latin American Cities

This data brief describes how the Salud Urbana en América Latina ("Urban Health in Latin America") project (SALURBAL) is using data to describe patterns of infant mortality across Latin American cities and understand what characteristics of urban environments may be contributing to inequities in infant mortality.

Infant Mortality in Latin American Cities (English PDF)
Mortalidad Infantil en Ciudades de Latinoamérica (Español PDF)
Mortalidade Infantil em Cidades Latino-americanas
(Português PDF)

Data in the SALURBAL Project

Data in the SALURBAL Project provides an overview of the process of selecting cities, compiling data, and the types of questions the dataset may help to answer. The document was developed to inform future SALURBAL studies and to receive feedback from stakeholder working in urban health in the region regarding how SALURBAL research can support their efforts. (November 2018) 

Data in the SALURBAL Project (English PDF) 
Los Datos del Proyecto SALURBAL (Español PDF) 
Os Dados do Projeto SALURBAL (Português PDF)

Further information about SALURBAL's data domains, variables, and methodological approach is available in Building a Data Platform for Cross-Country Urban Health Studies: the SALURBAL Study, published in the Journal of Urban Health (Quistberg et al., 2018)

Mortality and Life Expectancy in Latin American Cities

 Life expectancy and causes of death vary greatly across urban areas in Latin America, and global and regional summaries of life expectancy and causes of death can hide significant variability across cities. Urban environments that differ across neighborhoods, cities, and countries can have a major impact on life expectancy and causes of death. Mortality and Life Expectancy in Latin American Cities presents the experiences of the SALURBAL project in harmonizing and describing mortality data across 366 cities in 10 countries.

Mortality and Life Expectancy in Latin American Cities (English PDF)
Mortalidad y Esperanza de vida en las Ciudades de América Latina (Español PDF)
Mortalidade e Expectative de vida em Cidades Latino-Americanas (Português PDF)