Child health research and planning in Europe disadvantaged by major gaps and disparities in published statistics.

BACKGROUND: Population data, such as mortality and morbidity statistics, are essential for many reasons, including giving context for research, supporting action on health determinants, formulation of evidence-based policy for health care and outcome evaluation. However, when considering children, it is difficult to find such data, despite children comprising one-fifth of the European population and being in a key formative life stage and dependent on societal support. Moreover, it would be expected that there should be confidence in the key child health data available, with little to no discrepancy between recognized health statistic databases. METHODS: This study explored the main health databases in or including Europe to collate child mortality data, for both all-cause and specific-cause mortality. Tables were constructed for comparison of values and rankings. RESULTS: The results show that there are major differences in reported mortality data between two prominent health statistic databases, difference in coding systems, and unannounced changes within one of the databases. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of health data for children seems compounded by challenges to the trust and credibility, which are vital if these data are to have utility. Children and society are the losers, and resolution is needed as a priority.

European Union initiatives in child immunization-the need for child centricity, e-health and holistic delivery.

BACKGROUND: Low childhood immunization rates in Europe are causing concern and have triggered several EU initiatives. However, these are counter-factual as they make immunization a stand-alone issue and cut across best practice in integrated child health services. They also focus unduly on 'anti-vax' pressures, generalize 'vaccine hesitancy' and overlook practical difficulties and uncertainties encountered by parents in real world situations about presenting children for immunization. Meanwhile European expertize in child health electronic record systems and relevant standards are ignored despite their being a potentially sound foundation ripe for enhancement. METHODS: Situation and literature reviews, and cohesion of two European research projects, led to shared investigation. As a result, two cross-sectoral expert workshops were held to consider digital health standards for harmonizing integrated preventive child health including immunization, and the work of other stakeholders such as the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Control. RESULTS: Progress in child health information models and digital health standards was assessed, areas needing further standards development identified and desirable steps towards innovation in service delivery and record keeping agreed. CONCLUSION: The European Commission, member states and child health stakeholders should take an integrated approach to child health with immunization as a component. Service delivery should be sensitive to parental concerns and challenges, and the way child- and family-centric data are recorded and used should be enhanced. Services should be enabled by the International Patient Summary and related electronic health record standards and linkages, and evaluated to assess most effective systems and practice.

Extent of Use of Electronic Records in Children's Primary Care and Public Health in Europe.

EHRs are widely seen as a key resource in modern health care. For children not only is primary care vital, but also case-based public health systems can help ensure that all children receive immunisation and other preventive programmes. A European study showed that in 2016 in the 30 EU and EEA countries, 19 countries had widespread use of EHRs in children's primary care, while 20 countries had case-based child public health systems. However, the results show a bias of disadvantage for poorer or smaller countries. More study is needed in this area.

Towards Safe and Efficient Child Primary Care - Gaps in the Use of Unique Identifiers in Europe.

In order to provide for best possible child health care, timely access to all relevant medical data is of vital importance. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of unique identifiers, a key instrument in this regard, in the countries of Europe. A survey was carried out in all 28 European Member States plus 2 European Economic Area countries in 2015, and refreshed in 2016. In 23 countries unique identifiers are used to link children's health records. Five countries indicated they currently do not link child health records, and two have no such plans. There is variety as regards the type of number and the issuing process.

Why Are Children's Interests Invisible in European National E-Health Strategies?

Harnessing the power of IT solutions in child primary care requires strategic thought at national level, and good health care delivery needs this support. The aim of this study was to investigate whether children's needs are considered in national e-health strategies in Europe. In 2016, a survey was carried out in all 28 European Member States plus 2 European Economic Area countries. Sixteen countries fail to mention children's needs at all. Only eleven of 27 countries mention children and adolescents in their national e-health strategy documents ranging from mere data protection concerns to comprehensive IT approaches for the improvement of child primary care.

Assisting healthcare professionals in understanding drivers and barriers to improving pre-school immunisation uptake.

Improving the uptake of immunisations in preschool children is an ongoing public health policy strategy. Delineating the drivers and barriers affecting uptake may be helpful to health care professionals aiming to assess their own effectiveness or understand confounding factors when implementing improvement initiatives. Relevant literature was collated and placed into one of three over arching domains i) Wider environment ii) Home environment and iii) Practice Factors. A range of sub-domains are presented in addition to metrics to enable their assessment. The list of domains will be helpful to health care professionals interested in developing quality improvement programmes to increase or assess pre-school immunisation uptake.

Professional educational interventions designed to improve knowledge and uptake of immunisation.

The Healthy Child e-Learning Programme is a modular, educational intervention to support professionals to deliver the Healthy Child Programme (HCP). A group of clinical academics was convened to design an evaluation of the HCP e-Learning Programme. This article presents the findings of the literature review to identify a method of evaluating an educational intervention designed for professionals that improves knowledge. The discussion highlights the complexities of selecting an evaluation method that could be used or adapted for evaluating the HCP e-Learning Programme. The immunisation module was selected for evaluation, offering a number of measurable outcomes, including a secondary outcome measure of any increase in immunisation uptake in the evaluation population. Very few published papers were found evaluating educational interventions that were related to our search criteria, none of these papers evaluated the transfer of learning from the intervention against practice improvement outcomes or evaluated stakeholder perspectives. Evaluating an educational intervention with the aim of attributing improvements in practice solely to that intervention is complex and resulted in the task group mapping all the factors that occurred in the literature that may influence immunisation uptake to construct a conceptual framework to inform our evaluation design.

Child health indicators for Europe: a priority for a caring society.

BACKGROUND: Measurement of children's health is important for two reasons: first, because young people are citizens in their own right, yet largely unable to act as self-advocates, particularly at the population level; and second, because their health determines the health of the future population. Indicators based on measurements of child health are important for identifying progress, problems and priorities, changes over time, and newly emergent issues. The European Community Health Monitoring Programme (HMP) is a comprehensive programme to develop and implement a set of national-level indicators. The Child Health Indicators of Life and Development (CHILD) project is the only population group-specific project, seeking to determine a holistic set of measures. METHODS: The project endeavoured to address all aspects of child health and its determinants, balancing positive and negative aspects. It undertook a structured search of published evidence to seek to identify, and validate, indicators of health and illness, health determinants and challenges to health, quality of healthcare support and health-promoting national policies. A systematic approach was used in identifying valid indicators, and in assembling a balanced composite list. All ages from infancy to adolescence were covered. RESULTS: The project's final report identifies 38 core desirable national indicators, citing purpose and evidence for each. Of equal importance, it also identifies 17 key child health topics on which further research work is needed in order to identify and validate indicators appropriate across different national settings.