The European Health Examination Survey - Joint Action (EHES-JA) was established to provide an overview of the health and health risks of the European adult population through the implementation of health examination surveys (HES) in 12 countries. This Joint Action has tested and evaluated the applicability of the recommendations prepared by the Feasibility of a European Health Examination Survey (FEHES) project in different cultures and health care systems with the aim of achieving comparability between data from different countries. The EHES Coordinating Centre (CC), initially called EHES Reference Centre (RC), is the coordinating centre for the European Health Examination Surveys. It was established jointly by the National Institute for Health and Welfare from Finland, Istituto superiore di sanità from Italy and Statistics Norway. The EHES CC develops and maintains the European level standards for the health examination surveys, provides support and training for the countries conducting national HES, and evaluates the quality of data collected during the national HESs.

 

Four out of ten deaths in Europe are due to cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke. The majority of people suffering from these diseases are of working age and many of these become unable to work. The major modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular diseases - obesity, blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol and diabetes - are well-known and common to many chronic-degenerative diseases, but data on risk factors levels and trends among European populations are scarce. In addition, when data are available, they are not comparable between countries as collected following different procedures. For many health indicators, a health examination survey of a random sample of the general population is the most reliable data source.

 

The EHES pilot project has been realized between 2009-2012 in 12 participating countries: Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, UK/England. A sample of 200 persons aged 25-64 years has been examined in each country. The survey consisted of a questionnaire on important background information (age, sex, socio-economic status, health behaviours and health status), physical measurements (weight, height, waist circumference, blood pressure) and hematochemical examinations (serum total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and plasma glucose).

 

The data collected in the different countries has provided reliable and comparable data for the national and Europe-wide planning and evaluation of health policies, prevention and health promotion activities.

 

Guidelines

The EHES has provided a European level master manual and other guidelines tools available on the web site. The manual describes the European level standards for the national health examination surveys. It provides guidelines and specifies the requirements for the implementation of standardized national health examination surveys (HES) in the European countries.

 

During the pilot project, National HES manuals were prepared for EU Member States and EFTA/EEA countries through the collaboration between the EHES Coordinating Centre (CC) and national experts of the countries.

 

Italy in the European Health Examination Survey

The Istituto superiore di sanità participates actively in the European Survey by conducting national surveys within the Cuore project. The survey Oec (Osservatorio Epidemiologico Cardiovascolare), conducted between 1998 and 2002, examined 4,908 men and 4804 women aged 35-74 years. The survey Oec/Hes “Osservatorio Epidemiologico Cardiovascolare/Health Examination Survey”, conducted between 2008 and 2012, examined overall 4,555 men and 4,556 women aged 35-79 years, the survey Hes conducted between 2018 and 2019, examined 1,035 men and 1,071 women aged 35-74 years. The second survey included the Italian pilot project of the EHES, carried out on a sample of 391 people aged 25-64.

 

Download the report of the survey site visit (pdf 777 kb) conducted in Italy by members of the EHES Reference Centre (Brescia, May 24-25 2011)

 

To know more visit the European Health Examination Survey web site.