The European Core Health Indicators (ECHI), formerly known as European Community Health Indicators, is the result of long-term cooperation between EU countries and the European Commission.
Three ECHI projects (1998-2001, 2001-2004, 2005-2008) funded under the EU Health Programmes established the first lists of ECHI indicators, aiming to provide comparable health information and knowledge system to monitor health at EU level.
The Joint Action (JA) on European Community Health Indicators Monitoring (ECHIM) resulted in a shortlist of 88 health indicators classified by policy area, which were revised in 2017 under the BRIDGE-Health project (Bridging Information and Data Generation for Evidence-based Health Policy and Research). Of these, definitions and data collection mechanisms are in place for over 60 and where appropriate, data is disaggregated by sex, age, socio-economic status, and region.
ECHI are grouped under the following headings:
| Heading | Examples |
|---|---|
| Demographic and socio-economic situation | Population, birth rate, total unemployment |
| Health status | Infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, road traffic injuries |
| Health determinants | Regular smokers, consumption/availability of fruit |
| Health interventions: health services | Vaccination of children, hospital beds, health expenditure |
| Health interventions: health promotion | Policies on healthy nutrition |
Indicators are at the crossroads of policy questions and data sets. They reflect a policy interest as well as a select set of possibilities in terms of what can be calculated. For these reasons, the European Commission also presents other European health indicators that are not part of the ECHI system but are still useful to health stakeholders.
ECHI data tool
The ECHI data tool provides data on both ECHI indicators and other European health indicators, which are available in different formats ranging from line or bar charts, to maps or tables. It can be converted into an image or downloaded as a data file. The tool allows the multiple-selection of indicators.
References
Evaluation of the use and impact of the European Community Health Indicators ECHI by Member States (August 2013):
