Implementing the European Core Health Indicators (ECHI) in the Netherlands: an overview of data availability

Archives of Public Health

Agnes de Bruin²  Marieke Verschuuren¹  Maartje Marloes Harbers¹ 

[1]RIVM, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, 3720 BA, the Netherlands

[2]CBS, Statistics Netherlands, Den Haag, 2490 HA, the Netherlands

关键词: Netherlands;    European Union;    International comparisons;    European Core Health Indicators;    Monitoring;    Public health;   

Others  :  1140414
DOI  :  10.1186/s13690-014-0058-4

 received in 2014-08-22, accepted in 2014-12-14,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

The European Commission, together with the European Union (EU) Member States, developed a core set of indicators for monitoring public health in the EU, the European Core Health Indicators (ECHI) shortlist. From 2009 to 2012 developmental work on the ECHI indicators continued within the framework of the Joint Action for European Community Health Indicators and Monitoring (ECHIM). In this article, we give the current state of affairs on the availability of data for the ECHI indicators in the Netherlands and show what progress has been made over the past 5 years. The information provided serves as an illustration of the challenges encountered in a European country when working on harmonising national data collections with international data delivery requirements.

Methods

To assess data availability, we consulted Dutch data experts and relevant websites and reports on health monitoring activities. We compared the available Dutch data with the definitions, preferred data sources and relevant dimensions as requested by ECHI.

Results

The Netherlands can provide data for 66 of the 75 ECHI indicators for which availability could be assessed: for all of the 48 ECHI indicators that can be extracted from international databases and for 18 of the 27 indicators not available from international databases. Breakdowns by socio-economic status and region are not possible for 23 (35%) of the total of 66 indicators for which data are available and for 21 (32%) of these 66 indicators the definition is not exactly the same as requested by ECHIM. Since 2009, better estimates have become available for low birth weight, practising physicians and practising nurses.

Moreover, several European initiatives to improve harmonised data collection are expected to have a positive effect on data availability for the Netherlands. Such initiatives should become sustainable in order to provide possibilities for monitoring trends. The scattered data ownership in the Netherlands complicates the coordination work for international data deliveries.

Conclusion

Data availability in the Netherlands is good. Since 2009, several Dutch and European developments in harmonising data collection have contributed or will significantly contribute to improvements in the data situation for the ECHI indicators in the Netherlands.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Harbers et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

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