BRidging Information and Data Generation for Evidence-based Health Policy and Research
The BRIDGE Health project aimed to prepare the transition towards a sustainable and integrated EU (European Union) health information system for both public health and research purposes. The project was launched in May 2015 and ended in October 2017. The new Joint Action for Health Information (InfAct), effective as of March 2018, will continue to work on the above aim.
BRIDGE Health included 31 partners in 16 countries. The project served to bridge the best of EU projects in domains of population and health system monitoring, indicator development, health examination surveys, environment and health, population injury and disease registries, clinical and administrative health data collection systems and methods of health systems monitoring and evaluation.
BRIDGE Health was supported under the EU action of the Public Health Programme implemented by the Consumers, Health and Food Executive Agency of the European Commission.
RIVM and the Robert Koch-Institut (RKI) were the main contributers to the work on 'European Core Health Indicators Monitoring'.
European Core Health Indicators (ECHI)
The European Core Health Indicators (ECHI) together form a shortlist of public health indicators which was developed to serve as the core of a European public health monitoring system. The BRIDGE Health project contributed to the further development of the ECHI by evaluating the current data and content needs. So far, the ECHI work has been project-based and a sustainable EU health information system is lacking.
With contributions by RIVM, the Joint Action on Health Information (InfAct) will now prepare for a sustainable EU health information system in the form of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), including the development of a sustainable ECHI process.
The ECHI indicators derive their data from a variety of sources, including the EU's statistical office (Eurostat), the World Health Organisation’s European ‘Health for all’ database (HFA-DB), the Health Statistics database of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and several topic-specific databases.