Public health: Community action programme 1997-2001 on health monitoring

In its amended proposal, the Commission incorporated, in full or in part, 28 of the 44 amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading, namely those seeking to: - clarify or broaden certain recitals: . existing health monitoring capabilities to be enhanced so as to monitor trends in public health and determine priorities in this field; . a health monitoring system to be established to provide material for regular reports on health status in the Community and analyses of health trends; . cooperation in the field of occupational health to be increased with the aim of drawing up a table of occupational diseases and accidents and improving the comparability of data; - the actions covered by the programme to be broadened, in particular by including a feasibility study of a health observatory and by listing in a second Annex fields in which health indicators may be established. The Commission also accepted Parliament's amendments concerning the advisory committee and maintaining consistency in the actions proposed by the Commission (without the Member States). However, the Commission did not accept the amendments concerning: - the appropriation for the action programme (ECU 20 million rather than 13.8 million); - stepping up cooperation with NGOs in this field; - holding meetings of the committee in public; - Member States' setting up objectives for improving public health in compliance with a timetable; - financial support for the establishment or improvement of national systems for collecting health data and a guarantee that the data supplied by Member States are comparable; - requirement that evaluation reports be drafted and the results of EC health programmes submitted to the European Parliament.�