BackgroundPublic health policies aim to improve and maintain the health of citizens. Relevant data and indicators are needed for a health policy that is based on factual information. After 14 years of work (1998–2012), the multi-phase action on European Community Health Indicators (ECHI) has created a health monitoring and reporting system. It has generated EU added value by defining the ECHI shortlist with 88 common and comparable key health indicators for Europe.MethodsIn the 2009-2012 Joint Action for ECHIM project the ECHI shortlist was updated through consultation with Member State representatives. Guidelines for implementation of the ECHI Indicators at national level were developed and a pilot data collection was carried out.Results67 of the ECHI Indicators are already part of regular international data collections and thus available for a majority of Member States, 14 are close to ready and 13 still need development work. By mid-2012 half of the countries have incorporated ECHI indicators in their national health information systems and the process is ongoing in the majority of the countries. Twenty-five countries were able to provide data in a Pilot Data Collection for 20 ECHI Indicators that were not yet (fully) available in the international databases.ConclusionsThe EU needs a permanent health monitoring and reporting system. The Joint Action for ECHIM has set an example for the implementation of a system that can develop and maintain the ECHI indicators,, and promote and encourage the use of ECHI in health reporting and health policy making. The aim for sustainable public health monitoring is also supported by a Eurostat regulation on public health statistics requiring that health statistics shall be provided according to the ECHI methodology. Further efforts at DG SANCO and Eurostat are needed towards a permanent health monitoring system.

BackgroundCommunity-based initiatives (CBIs) on childhood obesity are considered a good practice approach against childhood obesity. The European Commission called for an overview of CBIs implemented from 2005–2011. A survey was executed by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment of the Netherlands, in collaboration with the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the European CBIs, as identified in the survey, presenting their general characteristics, applied strategies (separately for actions targeting the environment and/or directly the children’s behaviour) and the reported effects on weight indicators.MethodsPotentially eligible CBIs were identified by informants in 27 European Union countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, and through desk research. School based approaches could be included if they complied with criteria related to being ‘community-based’. In total, 278 potential eligible CBIs were identified and of these, 260 projects were approached. For 88 an electronic questionnaire was completed; of these 71 met all criteria. The included projects were reported by 15 countries.Results66% of the 71 CBIs implemented actions in more than one setting or throughout the neighbourhood. Most frequently reported environmental actions were professional training (78%), actions for parents (70%), and changing the social (62%) and physical (52%) environment. Most frequently reported educational activities were group education (92%), general educational information (90%), and counselling sessions (58%). The vast majority (96%) implemented both environmental and individual strategies and about half of the CBIs reported a public-private partnership. Eight CBIs provided evidence supporting positive effects on weight indicators and/or overweight prevalence in a general population of children (aged 6 to 12 yrs), and one CBI did not support this. Two of those CBIs were also conducted among adolescents (aged 12 to 16,5 yrs), but showed no effect in this age-group.ConclusionsDespite diversity of included CBIs, common characteristics were the application of integrated actions at a local level, aimed at changing the environment and the children’s behaviour directly. Evidence supporting effectiveness on weight indicators is available, although the design and conduct of most of these studies were suboptimal (i.e. no control group, a small sample size, not random).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-758) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Background: In order to prevent spread and improve control of infectious diseases, public health experts need to closely monitor human and animal populations. Infectious disease surveillance is an established, routine data collection process essential for early warning, rapid response, and disease control. The quantity of data potentially useful for early warning and surveillance has increased exponentially due to social media and other big data streams. Digital epidemiology is a novel discipline that includes harvesting, analysing, and interpreting data that were not initially collected for healthcare needs to enhance traditional surveillance. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of digital epidemiology complementing traditional public health approaches has been highlighted.Objective: The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview for the application of data and digital solutions to support surveillance strategies and draw implications for surveillance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.Methods: A search was conducted in PubMed databases. Articles published between January 2005 and May 2020 on the use of digital solutions to support surveillance strategies in pandemic settings and health emergencies were evaluated.Results: In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of digital epidemiology, available data sources, and components of 21st-century digital surveillance, early warning and response, outbreak management and control, and digital interventions.Conclusions: Our main purpose was to highlight the plausible use of new surveillance strategies, with implications for the COVID-19 pandemic strategies and then to identify opportunities and challenges for the successful development and implementation of digital solutions during non-emergency times of routine surveillance, with readiness for early-warning and response for future pandemics. The enhancement of traditional surveillance systems with novel digital surveillance methods opens a direction for the most effective framework for preparedness and response to future pandemics.

he Network of Competent Authorities (NCA) is one of the implementing structures of the Health Information and Knowledge Strand of the EU Public Health Programme 2003-08. 1 The NCA became aware of problems in the field of European public health monitoring related to data protection legislation, and established in 2005, on a voluntary basis, a Work Group on Data Protection, consisting of six members of the NCA with a specific interest in the topic, and two staff members from the NCA's Scientific Assistance Office. 2 The Work Group carried out an explorative survey among researchers in the European public health field, experts on health data protection and the national Data Protection Offices. This exercise resulted in a (non-exhaustive) overview of problems encountered in public health monitoring, and of major differences between national data protection systems regarding possibilities for using person identifiable health data for public health purposes. The major conclusions that can be drawn from this overview is that the legal possibilities for such usage differ to great extents between the Member States, and that this diversity can be traced back to the improper transposition of the EU Directive on Data Protection (Directive 95/46/EC). 3 EU directives are addressed to the Member States, who are obliged to transpose the directive into national law. By now, all Member States indeed have transposed Directive 95/46/EC, 4 though, as the results of the inventory of the Work Group showed, not in a harmonized