Have your say on “Strengthening monitoring of population health to signal and address the wider effects of the COVID-19 pandemic” (2020)

During the first phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus of surveillance and monitoring has been on the transmissibility, severity, and direct impact of COVID-19, and on public health and health care capacity to inform outbreak management and transformation strategies. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken to control the virus also have an impact on population health beyond the morbidity and mortality caused by the virus directly.

WHO/Europe, with the support of several experts, has developed this draft document that aim to strengthen national population health surveillance by providing a tool for Member States to incorporate measuring the wider effects of the COVID-19 pandemic into their national monitoring schemes. There are many indirect effects of the outbreak that affect health through various pathways. To ensure a better understanding of this complexity, a conceptual framework was devised to provide a clear structure for capturing the main indirect effects. This framework serves as a thinking aid that helps member states contemplate which wider effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health are relevant for their country, and how national health monitoring activities can be strengthened to signal the occurrence and measure the magnitude of these effects. Based on this framework, an indicator menu was developed. Member States can select indicators from this menu to include in their own national and subnational monitoring frameworks, or add indicators, according to their specific needs and circumstances.

To further support the national implementation of indicators that capture the wider effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, this document also comprises general considerations on data collection, indicator analysis and interpretation, and health information governance that are of particular relevance in this respect.

Participate in the consultation

The consultation is designed to gather feedback from all actors and anyone who would like to contribute to the consultation is encouraged to take part and support WHO/Europe in this effort.

The online consultation is taking place from 23 November until 21 December.