Health Information

The Community Public Health Programme 2003-2008 set down the objective of establishing and operating a sustainable health monitoring system. The system aims at producing comparable information on health and health-related behaviour of the population, on diseases and health systems. This will be based on European-wide common agreed indicators with regard to their definition, data collection and use. The system is to be established on the basis of previous work in former Community health programmes, and should be complementary to the activities of the Community Statistical Programme and to work underway in Community agencies, and in international organisations such as the WHO and OECD. It will not only provide regular reporting on health status in general but generate a flow of information, analysis and exchange of best practice in the public health field at European level. Previous work Most of the actions supported by the programme of Community action on health monitoring were in relation to the development of indicators. They prepared recommendations either for indicators for various health fields or for improvements in the data collection in relation to these indicators. A first set of European Community Health Indicators was produced by the ECHI 1 and ECHI 2 projects and widely disseminated. The objective by the end of this project was to continue the work on specific indicators in order to complete the European Community Health Indicators list that will serve as a basis for the European health information and knowledge system including their operational definitions. The programme has also supported the elaboration of regular European health status reports. Other Community health programmes also worked on health information and monitoring, such as the Pollution related diseases programme, the cancer programme, the drugs prevention programme, the rare diseases programme for example.