The healthy cities perspective in the manifestos for the September 2013 local elections

Abstract

This study sets out to conduct a qualitative analysis of 49 manifestos for the September 2013 local elections, using the conceptual framework of the World Health Organization’s Healthy Cities initiative as the benchmark for this assessment. The methodology consisted of extensive gathering of manifestos for local authority elections, obtaining a total of 203 out of a potential number of 1047. Of these 203, a qualitative analysis was conducted of 49, applying an analytical table that we developed for this purpose. The results show that, in terms of policy proposals in line with the healthy cities philosophy, the political parties present an alignment between their proposals and the feasibility afforded by the law. In terms of policy priorities, the focus was on economic issues (employment, poverty), quality of municipal infrastructure and youth policies.