National Health Examination Surveys

From past to present

The first national HES in Europe was carried out in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The number of surveys increased from the 1970s to the 1990s, and since 2000 there has been a fast increasing number of new national HESs. For more about the history of the health examination surveys in Europe, see FEHES Review Report.

Some of the countries have conducted a national HES in more or less regular intervals but in many countries the once conducted HES has been the isolated survey.

Finland has the longest history in Europe of an ongoing HES system. The Mobile Clinic of Social Insurance Institution examined adult population in 1966-1972 and since then the FINRISK surveys (every five years since 1972, next one being organized in 2012), the Mini-Finland Health Survey (1978-1980) and Health 2000 survey (2000-2001, follow-up survey in 2011) have been carried out. In UK, the HES has been carried out annually in England since 1991 and in Scotland in 1995, 1998, 2003 and annually since 2008.

Pilot phase of the EHES

In the framework of the EHES pilot, 13 European Union Member States and one EFTA/EEA country have started preparing for a standardized national HES. During the pilot phase (2010-2011) these countries will conduct a HES pilot to test the EHES standards in their country. The pilot survey has been carried out in 12 countries in July 2010-May 2011. The brief overview to these pilots is presented in posters (pdf-files) below:

• Czech Republic
• Finland
• Germany
• Greece
• Italy
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• UK/England