What about healthy networks? An analysis of the national networks of healthy cities in Europe

The World Health Organization (WHO)/Euro Healthy Cities Projecthas received much attention since the first project cities wereselected in 1987 in fact many more cities than can participateshowed (and still show) their interest. Thus initiatives havebeen taken to establish activities similar to the Healthy CitiesProject, not only in Europe but all over the worl4 ‘nationalnetworks of Healthy Cities’ have developed The nationalnetworks in Europe call themselves ‘EURONET’, aEuropean network of national Healthy Cities networks. EURONETis not a formal association; how this initiative will developin the near future is under discussion. A national network is an example of a social network but becauseof its complexity and different leveLs of ‘networking’,is difficult to analyse. However analysis, and evaluation, isneeded to review the functioning and impact of the healthy citiesidea. To study and analyse the networks in Europe, which areas a whole rather large, a selection has been made to reducethe number of participants (n=14), number of resources (n=4)and (categories of) activities (n=9) which were examined Theanalysis provided information about the development of the network;among other things it looked at why they started who took theinitiative, what changes occurred during the period of development,who were the participants at a national level, what activitieswere undertaken, and the relationship between activities andparticipants. As expected the findings did not provide a uniformpicture of ‘what a national Healthy Cities network shouldlook like’ nor did they give the recipe of ‘howto become a Healthy Cities network’. However, the strengthof national networks is that they have the potential to continuethe Healthy Cities project aims and objectives, even if theWHO project ever ceases.