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Health information in Europe

Edited by Hans van Oers
Archives of Public Health 

Europe mapHealth information in Europe is an article collection which addresses the wide diversity of subjects that can be placed under the flag of a health information system. The collection features research within the framework of the BRIDGE Health (BRidging Information and Data Generation for Evidence-based Health policy and research) project, an EU funded project that was created in order to explore the possibilities of creating an organisational entity that could undertake the tasks associated with the development of an EU Health Information System. The project aimed to demonstrate the added value and relevance of cross-country collaboration in this field. The BRIDGE Health project has recently been followed up by a new Joint Action on Health Information (InfAct). Manuscripts that are included within this collection discuss good examples, experiences and practices of EU-wide collaboration and outline the recent improvements towards a collaborative EU Heath Information System.

Publication charges for selected articles in this collection were funded by INSERM (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research). Articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process overseen by the Guest Editor, who declares no competing interests.

For more research see our new 'Health information systems' section.

  1. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Norwegian government appealed to the term “national dugnad” in the communication of containment measures as a call for collective action to fight the spread of infection. “Dug...

    Authors: Raquel Herrero-Arias, Irina Vladimirovna Halbostad and Esperanza Diaz
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2024 82:11
  2. Health inequalities within and between Member States of the European Union are widely recognized as a public health problem as they determine a significant share of potentially avoidable mortality and morbidit...

    Authors: Raffaella Bucciardini, Pi Zetterquist, Tuulia Rotko, Vania Putatti, Benedetta Mattioli, Paola De Castro, Federica Napolitani, Anna Maria Giammarioli, Bernadette N. Kumar, Charlott Nordström, Christina Plantz, Yvette Shajanian Zarneh, Gabriella Olsson, Malin Ahrne, Katri Kilpeläinen, Daniel Lopez-Acuña…
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2023 81:89
  3. The InfAct (Information for Action) is a Joint Action of the European Commission’s 3rd Health Programme with the main goal to build an infrastructure of a health information system for a stronger European Unio...

    Authors: Verónica Gómez, Mafalda Sousa-Uva, Rita Roquette, Ana Cristina Garcia and Carlos Matias Dias
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2022 80:133
  4. The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union. We aimed to provide an overview of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enablers ...

    Authors: Jakov Vukovic, Damir Ivankovic, Claudia Habl and Jelena Dimnjakovic
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2022 80:115
  5. Health information (HI) strategies exist in several EU Member States, however, they mainly focus on technical issues and improving governance rather than on content-related priority setting. There is also litt...

    Authors: Angela Fehr, Stefanie Seeling, Anselm Hornbacher, Martin Thißen, Petronille Bogaert, Marie Delnord, Ronan A. Lyons, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Peter Achterberg and Thomas Ziese
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2022 80:25
  6. Health reporting shall provide up-to-date health-related data to inform policy-makers, researchers and the public. To this end, health reporting formats should be tailored to the needs and competencies of the ...

    Authors: Martin Thissen, Stefanie Seeling, Peter Achterberg, Angela Fehr, Luigi Palmieri, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Brigid Unim and Thomas Ziese
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2021 79:229
  7. Measuring the true incidence of injury or medically attended injury is challenging. Population surveys, despite problems with recall and selection bias, remain the only source of information for injury inciden...

    Authors: Dritan Bejko, Maria Ruiz-Castell, Anna Schritz, Bjarne Laursen, Rupert Kisser, Wim Rogmans, Ronan A. Lyons, Huib Valkenberg, Samantha Turner, Robert Bauer, Gabrielle Ellsaesser and Nathalie de Rekeneire
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:76
  8. The European Core Health Indicators (ECHI) are a key source of comparable health information for the European Union (EU) and its Member States (MS). The ECHI shortlist contains 88 indicators which were develop...

    Authors: Angela Fehr, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Sabrina Hense, Dominika Urbanski, Peter Achterberg and Thomas Ziese
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:52
  9. Representative and reliable data on health and health determinants of the population and population sub-groups are needed for evidence-informed policy making; planning and evaluation of prevention programmes; ...

    Authors: Hanna Tolonen, Päivikki Koponen, Ala’a Al-kerwi, Nada Capkova, Simona Giampaoli, Jennifer Mindell, Laura Paalanen, Maria Ruiz-Castell, Antonia Trichopoulou and Kari Kuulasmaa
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:38
  10. Cross-country comparisons of health system performance have become increasingly important. Clear evidence is needed on the prioritization of health system performance assessment (HSPA) indicators. Selected “le...

    Authors: Nataša Perić, Maria M. Hofmarcher and Judit Simon
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:32
  11. Population-based registries implement the comprehensive collection of all disease events that occur in a well-characterized population within a certain time period and represent the preferred tools for disease...

    Authors: Luigi Palmieri, Giovanni Veronesi, Giovanni Corrao, Giuseppe Traversa, Marco M. Ferrario, Giovanni Nicoletti, Anna Di Lonardo, Chiara Donfrancesco, Flavia Carle and Simona Giampaoli
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:31
  12. In 2005, the European Union (EU) started to use a disability-free life expectancy, known as Healthy Life Years (HLY), to monitor progress in the strategic European policies such as the 2000 Lisbon strategy. HL...

    Authors: Petronille Bogaert, Herman Van Oyen, Isabelle Beluche, Emmanuelle Cambois and Jean-Marie Robine
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:30
  13. To date Health information (HI) in the European Union does not comprise indicators or other information related to impacts of hazardous chemicals in consumer products, food, drinking water or air on the health...

    Authors: Anke Joas, Miriam Schöpel, Madlen David, Maribel Casas, Gudrun Koppen, Marta Esteban, Lisbeth E. Knudsen, Martine Vrijheid, Greet Schoeters, Argelia Castaño Calvo, Gerda Schwedler, Marike Kolossa-Gehring and Reinhard Joas
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:27
  14. The integration of different administrative data sources from a number of European countries has been shown useful in the assessment of unwarranted variations in health care performance. This essay describes t...

    Authors: Enrique Bernal-Delgado and Francisco Estupiñán-Romero
    Citation: Archives of Public Health 2018 76:6