Public health: Community action programme 1999-2003 on injury prevention, EHLASS incl.
1997/0132(COD)
In adopting the report by Mr Antonios TRAKATELLIS (PPE, GR), the European Parliament
adopted amendments to the programme on injury prevention. Recalling that children and women
are more vulnerable, it called for:
-the programme, as a priority, to help reduce the number of injuries to children, young adults,
women and the elderly, whether caused intentionally or unintentionally, or through suicide or self-infliction, arising from causes other than industrial accidents and road accidents;
-the programme to comprise both epidemiological monitoring of injuries, in the form of continuous
and systematic gathering of health data and analysis of risk factors, and the establishment of
networks to gather and exchange information about injury prevention;
-in connection with the implementation of the programme, the Commission, in cooperation with
the Member States, to be responsible for the development, operation and parallel management of
two Community information systems: the first on injuries, based on the existing EHLASS system,
and the second on suicide. The data gathered should be comparable and compatible. In addition, as
regards injury data, Parliament called for information gathering to apply, inter alia, to dangerous
products, to enable measures to be taken (e.g. removal from the market of unsafe products).
Additions were also made to the annexes, where the first category of actions to be undertaken was
extended to women and new actions were listed in the field of suicide: collection of information,
transmission of comparable and consistent data, exchange of information about the effectiveness
of information campaigns aimed at young people inclined to suicide (particularly the establishment
of psychological support networks).
Parliament also called for greater coordination of statistics, particularly by improving coordination
of the work of Eurostat with that of certain specialized bodies (CEN, Cenelec, ETSI, the European
Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, the European Environment Agency, etc.).
Lastly, Parliament:
-in the field of commitology, called for the Commission to be assisted by experts and
representatives of organizations with the relevant expertise,
-called for the appropriation for the programme for the period 1999-2003 to be increased to ECU
14 million.�