ECHIM Final Report

The definitions of ECHI indicators developed by projects under the European
Community Public Health Action programme have been used if available. Because
specific operational definitions were not available for some of the ECHI shortlist
indicators at the beginning of the project, it was necessary to use proxy indicators
covering the same issue. The proxy indicators were selected ad hoc and the databases
were checked for available national data. In several cases the indicator definitions used
by the international databases showed some differences. These differences influence the
results of the availability check, for instance when indicators are defined for slightly
different age groups or other categories (e.g. birth weight of newborns). In addition
to the availability of data for ECHI shortlist indicators, the possibility of stratification
by important demographic and socio-economic variables was determined. The relevant
stratification variables that are considered necessary for nearly all ECHI shortlist indicators
are age, sex (routine data collection)/gender (self-reported) and socio-economic status,
the latter being the variable with the lowest availability. It is an important finding of the
availability check that indicator-based information for different population subgroups is
currently restricted to age- and sex-specific data. Overall it can be said that stratification
for age and sex is possible for some ECHI shortlist indicators, while stratification for
socio-economic status is generally possible for indicators derived from common surveys,
such as EU-SILC and EHIS.
For several ECHI shortlist indicators final definitions were not available at the time
of the review of international databases. In these cases, preliminary definitions have
been used to identify proxy indicators that are presented in international and project
databases.
This approach was chosen in order to avoid duplication of data reporting, and based
on previous experiences it was decided to assess the availability of the ECHI shortlist
indicators from existing international data sources where identical or similar indicators
have already been collected. This step was considered necessary in order not to overwhelm
national contact persons with requests for data retrieval. Moreover, it is essential to build
on the results of the ongoing harmonisation process in the context of the partnership
for public health statistics, a process set up by DG Eurostat. Until 2007 several Working
Groups and Task Forces have worked on improving public health statistics, mainly
focusing on three areas (causes of death, health care statistics – both non-expenditure
and expenditure data – and health interview surveys). Since 2007 more effort has been
put into collecting morbidity statistics.
4.2. Assessment of the availability of the ECHI shortlist indicators
As explained above, the assessment of the availability of the ECHI shortlist indicators
is based on a review of major international health databases (Eurostat, WHO Health
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