EHIS - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki
General description
The European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) is a comprehensive, periodic assessment designed to gather information on the health, lifestyle determinants, and healthcare utilization of adults within the European Union (EU) Member States. Conducted every three to four years with a standardized yet adaptable questionnaire, EHIS facilitates the creation of informed, health-improving policies across the EU by offering crucial insights into prevailing health concerns.
EHIS's objective is to uniformly assess, with a high degree of comparability across Member States, the health conditions (including disability), lifestyle-related health determinants, and the accessibility and use of healthcare services among EU citizens aged 15 and above living in private households within the member countries.
Initiated between 2003 and 2006, EHIS encompasses four primary areas: health conditions, lifestyle determinants, healthcare utilization, and socio-demographic profiles of the population. To date, three iterations of the survey have been executed. The inaugural wave, conducted between 2006 and 2009 in 17 EU Member States, along with Switzerland and Turkey, laid the groundwork. This was followed by a second wave between 2013 and 2015, extending to all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, and Turkey (in line with Commission Regulation 141/2013). The latest wave took place in 2019, with all Member States participating (under Commission Regulation (EU) No. 2018/255), albeit with some countries receiving extensions for their data collection periods.
Throughout its iterations, the survey's core questionnaire has remained consistent, comprising the same four modules. However, adjustments have been made to meet evolving user requirements, and countries have the flexibility to append specific questions or submodules, provided they do not affect the integrity of the mandatory data collected.
Variable categories
- Background variables on demography and socio-economic status: Age, education, labour status, sex, etc.
- Health status: chronic conditions, disease-specific morbidity, limitation in usual activities, physical and sensory functional limitations, self-perceived health, etc.
- Health-care use: Consultations, hospitalisation, preventive actions, unmet needs, use of medicines, etc.
- Health determinants - alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, height and weight, smoking, etc.
Related publications
- European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) 2 – Background and study methodology
- Implementation of the European health interview survey (EHIS) into the German health update (GEDA)
- Feeling too low to be active: Physical inactivity mediates the relationship between mental and physical health
- Opportunities for healthcare digitalization in Europe: Comparative analysis of inequalities in access to medical services
- Self-reported participation in cervical cancer screening among Polish women in 2004-2019
- Expanded vaccination practice in 2-year-old children and maternal knowledge on expanded vaccination in Tien Giang, Vietnam
- Sex and income inequalities in preventive services in diabetes
- Cervical cancer (over-)screening in Europe: Balancing organised and opportunistic programmes
- Unrecorded alcohol consumption in Lithuania: a modelling study for 2000-2021
- Quality of life, social support, and adherence in female patients with thyroid disorders
- The effects of survey mode on self-reported psychological functioning: Measurement invariance and latent mean comparison across face-to-face and web modes
- Reliability and cross-country equivalence of the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) for the assessment of depression: results from 27 countries in Europe
- The Influence of Patent Foramen Ovale on the Clinical Features of Migraine without Aura: A Cross-Sectional Study
- Assessing the impact of sociodemographic and lifestyle factors on oral health: a cross-sectional study in the Hungarian population
- Prevalence and variability of depressive symptoms in Europe: update using representative data from the second and third waves of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS-2 and EHIS-3)
Data access
More information about EHIS can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/microdata/european-health-interview-survey
To access EHIS data, visit https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/data/database