Health indicators in the European Regions.

working groups were then refined at a series of international meetings. The main elements of information required for each proposed indicator (characteristics, operational definition, possible sources of data, methodological issues, and availability) were summarised on a standard form. A web-site of all pertinent EUROCHIP information has been created (www.istitutotumori.mi.it/ project/eurochip/homepage.htm). A methodology working group studied the ways to standardise, collect and validate health indicator data. The preliminary list of indicators was grouped along three axes: i) natural history of disease, ii) type of factor (demographic, socio-economic, health status, determinant of health, or health system related) and iii) cancer site. A list of indicators was produced (table 2). Some of the indicators (table 2) have already been proposed by other HMP projects, but a large number of new indicators was also identified. These were grouped into five separate domains; smaller meetings of European experts in these domains were held to review the relevance of each of the indicators and to identify any problems with them. Before the list of indicators is finalised for the European Union and work begins in earnest on actually collecting the data that will be used to generate the indicators the clinical, scientific and technical staff involved in EUROCHIP feel it is vital to have extensive feedback from all interested parties.