Source description last updated: 21 January 2020

In brief: The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies is an intergovernmental partnership hosted by the WHO Regional Office for Europe that seeks to enable evidence-based health policy-making across Europe.

Coverage on ecoi.net:

Country Health Profiles and Health Systems in Transition (HiT) reviews

Covered quarterly on ecoi.net, for countries of priorities A-D

Mission/Mandate/Objectives:

“The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies supports and promotes evidence-based health policy-making through comprehensive and rigorous analysis of the dynamics of health-care systems in Europe. It engages directly with policy-makers and experts, and works in partnership with research centres, governments and international organizations to analyse health systems and policy trends.” (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies website: About us, undated)

“By delivering on this mission, the Observatory hopes to contribute to the wider goal of helping European health systems to improve the health and well-being of the people they serve, and to better fulfil health system policy goals of solidarity, equity, efficiency, quality and responsiveness.” (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies website: Mission statement, undated)

“The Observatory is a partnership, hosted by WHO/Europe, which includes other international organizations (the European Commission, the World Bank); national and regional governments (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the Veneto Region of Italy); other health system organizations (the French National Union of Health Insurance Funds (UNCAM), the Health Foundation); and academia (the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)).

The Observatory is composed of a Steering Committee, a core management team and staff. Its Secretariat is based in Brussels, Belgium. Its research hubs in London, United Kingdom, are hosted by the LSE Department of Health Policy and the LSHTM Centre for Global Chronic Conditions, and its research hub in Berlin, Germany, is hosted by the Department of Health Care Management of the Berlin University of Technology.“ (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies website: About us, undated)

Funding:

No specific information found.

Scope of reporting:

Geographic focus: Europe (EU and EEA countries)

Thematic focus: Health, life expectancy and health hazards, health systems and their performance (effectiveness, accessibility, capacity to adapt to changing situations)

Methodology:

The Country Health Profiles are “the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in cooperation with the European Commission. […]

The data and information in the Country Health Profiles are based mainly on national official statistics provided to Eurostat and the OECD, which were validated to ensure the highest standards of data comparability. […] Some additional data also come from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) surveys and the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as other national sources.” (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies/ OECD: Germany: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, 2019, p. 2)

The profiles use “both quantitative and qualitative data, yet flexibly adapted to the context of each EU/EEA country.“ (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies/ OECD: Germany: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, 2019, p. 24)

Language of publication:

English

 

All links accessed 21 January 2020.