This paper explains the methods that were used to study environmental health problems in Karonga, a rapidly growing secondary urban centre in Malawi. The study used existing information from hospital records and consulted local health officials and academics on how best to use it. The aim was to position the hospital as a disease surveillance site by using its records to generate disaggregated health data at the intra-urban scale. This paper identifies the strengths and limitations of using hospital data to inform joint urban planning and public health interventions. It also provides a summary of the key findings, including a discussion of the implications for enhancing urban health intelligence and urban policy formulation in Malawi and other rapidly urbanizing countries. This paper is intended to show researchers how existing information in low-resource settings can be used to generate needed health data for urban populations, with a particular interest in secondary centres.

中文翻译：

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使用医院记录评估马拉维卡隆加市环境健康的优缺点

本文介绍了用于研究Karonga（环境迅速发展的马拉维二级城市中心）的环境健康问题的方法。该研究使用了医院记录中的现有信息，并就如何最好地使用该信息咨询了当地卫生官员和学者。目的是通过使用医院的记录生成城市内规模的分类健康数据，将医院定位为疾病监视站点。本文确定了使用医院数据为联合城市规划和公共卫生干预提供信息的优势和局限性。它还概述了主要发现，包括在马拉维和其他快速城市化国家中增强城市卫生情报和城市政策制定的意义的讨论。