Joint Action for ECHIM

This application concerns a request for partial co-funding for the Joint Action for ECHIM, for which a proposal was submitted in the DG SANCO call 2008, and selected for funding. The Joint Action is a new financing mechanism, which was introduced with the new EU Action Programme for Health (2008-2013).In a Joint Action the Member States together with the European Commission work on realizing one ore more of the objectives of the EU Health Strategy. In contrast to normal project proposals, more input from the Member States is expected in a Joint Action and hence the level of co-funding is lower (50%, exceptionally 70% for Joint Actions versus 60%, exceptionally 80% for normal projects). In the Joint Action for ECHIM, a core group of 6 countries has taken the lead through their public health institutes (amongst which RIVM). A majority of the 27 EU Member States is cooperating in the Joint Action for ECHIM. The Joint Action for ECHIM builds on a decade of developmental work. As of 1998, the European Commission has called for and funded projects which aimed to develop a list of public health indicators for implementation at European level. In successive order these have been the ECHI-1 (European Community Health Indicators) project (1), the ECHI-2 project (2) and the ECHIM project (3). RIVM has been the lead partner of the ECHI-1 and -2 projects, and was associated partner in the ECHIM project. The main outcome of these projects has been the so-called ECHI shortlist; a list of 88 indicators, together with accompanying metadata (definitions, calculation methods, preferred data sources etc.). This shortlist is at the core of European Union public health monitoring policy. For that reason the Commission in the 2008 call for proposals called for a Joint Action for the implementation of the ECHI shortlist in all EU Member States. The general objective of the Joint Action for ECHIM is threefold: 1. Improving, documenting and maintaining the ECHI indicators 2. Implementing the ECHI indicators in all Member States 3. Maintaining a network of national health indicator experts for ECHI indicators and their collection The Joint Action for ECHIM will help to create and maintain a sustainable health monitoring system in Europe by collecting comparable health data and information. The focus will be on the ECHI shortlist. The work will be carried out in close collaboration with Member States, the European Commission, Eurostat, WHO, OECD and the other international organizations in order to implement the EU Health Strategy. The main target group for the indicator information that will be made available through the Joint Action are policy makers, both at supranational and national level. Secondly, the indicator information will be useful for public health experts, including university teachers. Next to that, one of the priorities of the Commission is to provide the citizen with comprehensive and reliable information. A fourth target group for the ECHI indicator information will be the media. The Joint Action will result in a solid international benchmark, enabling Dutch policy makers and public health experts to assess, at a regular basis, the performance of Dutch prevention policies as compared to the other EU Member States. As an example, see the benchmarking exercise that was carried out by RIVM in 2008 based on the data available for the ECHI shortlist indicators at that time (5). As the implementation of the shortlist will be a structural, continuous policy, comparable data will become available at regular intervals, and published regularly in the form of easily accessible information. This information will be useful for e.g. the detection of unfavorable changes in patterns of health behavior. As such, the outcomes of the Joint Action will serve as input for the development or adjustment of Dutch prevention policies. Following the same line of thought, the Joint Action can be a tool for policy evaluation as well. Last but not least the substantial Dutch role in this Joint Action will strengthen the position of the Dutch Ministry of Health in the European Union public health policy arena.