The contribution of primary care based registration by sentinel networks to a European public health information system.

Primary care based registrations by Sentinel Networks have been operating for several decades in Europe. Participating general practitioners have provide health data for monitoring the health status and contribute to understand the epidemiological distribution of diseases and other conditons first and/or exclusively seen in primary care. Many collaborative studies have been carried out among different countries and registration netwerks. Since the 'Blood test study' in the late eighties, to the more recent European Influenza Surveillance Scheme (where practices are the providers of data and virological specimens), many efforts has been done to standardise objectives and methods that have permitted a better co-ordination an co-operation throughout European countries, including increasing international comparability. In recent years, within the framework of the Health Monitoring Program of the EC and with the guidelines of the European Union Public Health Information Network/Health indictors Exchange and Monitoring system (EUP-HIN/HIEMS), two research projects have been implemented with the objective to contribute to health indicators from Primary Care. In 2002 the 'Health information from Primary Care' project was lauched with the participation of sentinel networks of Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Spain. Final results are expexcted in 2004. The proposed symposium's main objective is to show epidemiologists and public health workers the value of data provided by general practitioners and its use to estimate accurate and valid health indicators. Some conferences about the experiences in different European countries will give an overview on this subject. (aut.ref.