EPHO1: Surveillance of population health and wellbeing

The purpose of this essential public health operation (EPHO) is to feed information and intelligence to health needs assessments, health impact assessments and to planning for health services.It is essential for policy-makers to have a reliable and clear picture of how health is distributed in a given population, and what indicators contribute to or reduce opportunities to be healthy. Well-functioning public health laboratories are therefore critical to countries’ surveillance and response activities.

A recent self-assessment of public health services in 41 of the 53 countries in the WHO European Region found that:

• Most countries in the WHO European Region have surveillance systems and registries in place for communicable diseases, environmental hazards and basic demographic and health status data; notable exceptions are in Central Asian countries.
• Routine surveillance of risk factors for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and broader determinants (including protective factors, inequalities and lifestyle behaviours) is generally poorly developed across the region. So is the links between data on these factors.
• There has been a recent emergence of some communicable diseases, such as malaria and polio in Central Asian countries, highlighting the need for good surveillance systems.

As a result, a recommendation was made  to strengthen surveillance systems in order to inform planning for addressing inequalities, the wider determinants of health and health promotion.

Health information systems and health data

WHO/Europe provides regular summaries of health statistics across Europe and supports countries in the establishment, enhancement and evaluation of integrated and effective health information systems. It works with international partners to ensure the standardization, international comparability and quality of health data.

Laboratory services

WHO/Europe also supports countries in developing national policies, standards and strategies for laboratory services and in strengthening the capacities of these laboratories.