Editorials Health effects of the crisis: challenges for

A European Public Health journal must have as a priority thesedays to publish evidence as well as policy papers on the economic crisis and its health effects. The scope of the recent years ’ crisis has been compared with that of the thirties, but one important difference is that we now have plenty of data, statistics, and regular surveys, by which the health effects of the crisis can be monitored and analysed. But still, as recently pointed out by Karanikolos et al.1 in the Lancet series on Health in Europe, funding and infrastructure is not there to monitor health effects of the crisis, and there has been a lack of interest and concern among European leaders to follow public health consequences of the austerity measures taken. This stands in stark contrast to the interest and meticulous follow-up of econometric measures. As one policy maker pointed out: ‘The more controversial and policy related a scientific issue is, the more important it is that research on the matter is scientifically valid. ’ This is certainly th