Evaluation of data availability on population health indicators at the regional level across the European Union

Abstract

Background The ability to measure regional health inequalities across Europe and to build adequate population health indices depends significantly on the availability of reliable and comparable data at the regional level. Within the scope of the EU-funded project EURO-HEALTHY, a Population Health Index (PHI) was built. This model aggregates 39 indicators considered relevant by experts and stakeholders to evaluate and monitor population health on the regional level within the European Union (269 regions). The aim of this research was to assess the data availability for those indicators. As a subsequent aim, an adequate protocol to overcome issues arising from missing data will be presented, as well as key messages for both national and European statistical authorities meant to improve data collection on population health. Methods The methodology for the study includes three consecutive phases: (i) assessing the data availability for the respective indicators at the regional level for the last year available (ii) applying a protocol for missing data and completing the database and (iii) developing a scoring system ranging from 0 (no data available; worst) to 1 (all data available; best) to evaluate the availability of data by indicator and EU region. Results Although the missing data on the set of the PHI indicators was significant, the mean availability score for the EURO-HEALTHY PHI indicators is 0.8 and the regional availability score is 0.7, which reveal the strength of the indicators as well as the data completeness protocol for missing data. Conclusions This study provides a comprehensive data availability assessment for population health indicators from multiple areas of concern, at the EU regional level. The results highlight that the data completeness protocol and availability scores are suitable tools to apply on any indicator’s data source mapping. It also raises awareness to the urgent need for sub-national data in several domains and for closing the data gaps between and within countries. This will require policies clearly focused on improving equity between regions and a coordinated effort from the producers of data (the EU28 national statistics offices and EUROSTAT) and the stakeholders who design policies at EU, regional and local level. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12963-019-0188-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Role of Cohesion Policy Funds in Decreasing the Health Gaps Measured by the EURO-HEALTHY Population Health Index

“…Moreover, data from the PHI used in this study cover year 2014, and specific data gaps were identified throughout the EU regions and PHI indicators. Constraints on data availability at the regional level were found in dimensions within built environment, lifestyle and health behaviors, and healthcare performance [39].…”

“…Indicators were selected through a wide Web-Delphi process where an international panel of 80 stakeholders and experts from multidisciplinary fields shared their views on which factors were deemed relevant to evaluate European population health [38]. The indicator data were collected for the year 2014 and retrieved from different official bodies, such as EUROSTAT, the European Environment Agency (EEA), and the World Health Organization (WHO) [39].…”

Advancing tools to promote health equity across European Union regions: the EURO-HEALTHY project

“…Data gaps at the regional level on several indicators led to some adjustments between the conceptual model and the model implemented and available via the WebGIS. Issues with availability and quality of the indicator data at sub-national levels should be fundamentally addressed in order to obtain the full potential of this tool [48].…”

“…Currently, despite significant advances in data harmonisation at the EU level (e.g. Eurostat), there is still room for improved data to monitor and assess specific health determinants [48] that shape health outcomes at different geographical levels in a comparable way [59]. The benefit of using the PHI in the future will be accentuated if there is greater alignment of the data collected from different data sources (in the current PHI not all data were available at the same time and spatial resolution).…”

“…The benefit of using the PHI in the future will be accentuated if there is greater alignment of the data collected from different data sources (in the current PHI not all data were available at the same time and spatial resolution). Efforts should be intensified to collect and harmonise data at the subnational level with the goal of narrowing the gaps in data amongst and within the EU Member States [48].…”