Index

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
HEALTH AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL

Home

EGOHID II Final catalogue “Health Surveillance in Europe – Oral Health Interviews and Clinical Surveys: Guidelines”

The European project EGOHID II came to an end on October 31st, 2008. In this context, the final catalogue “Oral Health Interviews and Clinical Surveys: Guidelines” was published. It aims at disseminating all over Europe the result of an intense and fruitful collaboration of all partners during two years.
Click on the picture to download the catalogue >>


Why implement an Oral Health Surveillance system in Europe? The experience of these eight past years within the framework of the EGOHID I and II projects has underlined how difficult it is to standardize, rationalize and organize methods for the selection and recommendation of indicators, and to mobilize networks at a European level. It has also brought to light the complexity of the terms of reference, which undoubtedly had to be above all pragmatic and operational, but also innovative with regard to the evolution of public health policies.
This work has adopted a resolutely forward-looking, future-oriented strategy, and created a real consensus among all institutional actors in the field of oral health. It wanted to anticipate the main trends in health policy. The key word that guided the reflection and action during this period was "decision support", the basic premise being that information is used by policy makers to assist them in identifying their options and making their choices.
The need to cooperate, to collaborate and to adopt an integrated approach to oral diseases and chronic diseases should also be kept in mind.
The liability of the institutions that have contributed to this work by making choices and taking action is as great as the challenges of oral health in Europe are significant. It is also important to emphasise the economic impact of the European dental profession through its network of 400,000 dentists, in a context where the funding of health care is currently questioned and debated. Consumer protection and quality insurance are essential and will play a dominant part in the future of the discipline. In fact, they have directly guided the options chosen for the selection of specific indicators, which are themselves at the service of a policy, of objectives and strategies that integrate health determinants, processes, outcomes and the quality of life.
To undertake the drafting of a document presenting recommendations on the methods to be implemented in the framework of a dental health monitoring system makes sense only if one immerses oneself in the philosophy, guidelines, and methods which, in 2005, led a panel of experts and project members to recommend a list of essential indicators in oral health. The 40 indicators selected and subsequently described in a normative and standardized way are the pieces of a puzzle that should be considered in its entirety. The document published in 2005 entitled ”A selection of Essential Oral Health Indicators – 2005 Catalogue” is intended as a guide for dental and non-dental policy-makers. It will enable them to organize, assess and plan the best policies and strategies for health. It is a tool which is part of a comparative logical analysis of health systems of the Union.
The reflection is not national, it is European. These indicators have meaning and existence because they are structured in relation to each other and belong to a dynamic, prospective process that makes them dependent on each other. While epidemiology observes, surveillance initiates and supports the health process from beginning to end. All the trends that usually make up a chain of health surveillance have been taken into account. In the indicators selection process, the data and latest knowledge recommended by international organizations (WHO, DG SANCO) and by the scientific community have also been included. Oral health epidemiology, focusing on traditional clinical epidemiology, has of course been respected. But the fact of introducing indicators that target, for example, specific population groups such as pregnant women, that take into consideration habits and behaviour with regard to the preventive system, or that relate to accessibility, satisfaction, to the quality of life considered in its entirety, in an innovative manner, has, undoubtedly, shaken some habits.
Among the six projects funded by the Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General of the European Commission in 2005, in the framework of the Community Action Programme for Public Health, the “European Global Oral Health Indicators Development” project EGOHID II was designed to support the decision-making process in the development of European policies, and especially to encourage the identification of oral health priorities, strategies and objectives that may apply to the field of chronic diseases. The project involved 32 European institutions, health ministries, European and national professional organisations as well as the World Health Organisation.
Twenty associate partners and 25 collaborating partners were involved from 2005 until 2008 in the development of recommendations of methods for collecting the indicators previously identified and described in the EGOHID II project. After a comprehensive review of the literature on the methodologies used in health in the context of international and national programmes and the analysis of existing data and methods for the oral health indicators concerned, the group focused first on producing two questionnaires and a clinical form which dealt respectively with one of the three following targets: the general population, health care providers, and oral health clinical data. In the same way, recommendations were made on the methods that should be used to obtain the relevant information, based fundamentally on the CATI method for population-based surveys – among children, adults and health care providers – and on the establishment and development of a network of sentinel dentists in charge of obtaining clinical data. The questionnaires were translated into several languages and tested in European pilot surveys. They were then amended and validated to reach the definitive format described in this document. In the same way, the techniques used to collect the information (CATI, sentinel networks) were evaluated. The results are quite significant.
The EGOHID projects have thus reached the end of the process which aims to offer techniques and methods for the collection of information regarded as essential for decision support. They make it possible for health authorities to use in full knowledge of the facts the indicators and methods associated with health surveillance in Europe.

Professor Denis Bourgeois Project Leader

EGOHID Network

Click on the map to enlarge it

Description

Summary

Reports

Meetings

Partners

Associated Partners

Collaborating Partners

National Invited Partners

Collection of the European Global Oral Health Indicators

Health Surveillance in Europe 2008

Summary

Reports

Meetings

EGOHID Essential Indicators

View the closed call for tenders ...

Legal information

Contact


Website map


		Project supported by the European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General

Last update on 06/05/2009

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In gravida, odio id egestas tincidunt, metus eros imperdiet nunc, ut commodo justo nisi vitae magna. Curabitur porta auctor mi. Pellentesque quis sapien quis dui vestibulum fringilla. Donec nunc. Phasellus vitae lacus nec odio elementum dignissim. Suspendisse dui pede, ultricies eget, facilisis interdum, consequat sed, enim. Maecenas mattis interdum ipsum. Maecenas interdum gravida urna. Cras ut elit. Etiam nisi magna, facilisis id, vehicula non, consequat ac, nunc.