INDICATORS

Excluding vital statistics, there was no data source that existed in all countries. The most
prevalent sources were HIS, hospital admission/discharge register and register on the
use of prescription medicines. Although simply named “registers” in the questionnaire,
other types of sources were also taken into account, such as e-health records. The most
infrequent source was clearly HES, which was also clearly seen in the Health determinants
section. Primary and ambulatory care registers and registers on accidents and injuries
were not very frequent sources either, yet available in more than half of the countries.
Figure 9. Availability of data sources in Europe
Data sources in availability order
Health interview survey (HIS)
Hospital admission / discharge
register
Register on use of prescription
medicines
Cancer register
Health insurance register
Accidents and injuries registerall
injuries
Ambulatory (hospital out-patient)
care register
Primary care register
(general practice)
Health examination survey (HES)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Availability in %
It was also asked if records could be linked from various national sources. In most
cases this was possible, but in many countries data protection legislation, usually based
on strict interpretation of the EU Directive on Data Protection (Directive 95/46/EC),
presented serious obstacles to record linkage 7 .
The third part was about data reporting. It was asked whether the countries have a
national system for disseminating health data and whether they produced regular health
reports in paper or online. The question concerned both general national health reports
and topic specific reports.
Generally, all countries have a data reporting system, but the information received for this
section varied greatly, from simple “yes” replies to extensive catalogues of publications
and websites.
7
Vershuuren M, Badeyan G, Carnicero J, Gissler M, Pace Asciak R, Sakkeus L, Stenbeck M, Devillé W:
The European data protection legislation and its consequences for public health monitoring: a plea for
action. European Journal of Public Health 2008. In press.
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