'Dramatic increases in life-expectancy constitute one of the most
remarkable advances of the twentieth century. Why prolong life if this
is to be accompanied by increases in severe mental and physical
disability ? A further challenge confronts us - increasing
life-expectancy in good health'.  <p>

This was our concluding statement last year on the first page of the
work-programme of the Concerted Action EURO-REVES: Harmonization of
Health Expectancy in Europe. EURO-REVES began officially a few weeks
ago and this first newsletter launches it for the next three years,
with four practical pages summarizing its objectives and updating its
work-programme.  <p>

Although disability-free life expec-tancy values are now available for
14 European countries (Austria, Bel-gium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland and the United Kingdom), in fact 11 out of the 15 Union
members, it is impossible to make meaningful comparisons due to the
very great differences in the questions used and the research
designs. This seriously limits the usefulness of the calcula-tions and
justifies the implementation of a harmonization process at the Union
level. One of the main objec-tives of EURO-REVES is to promote a
common 'European Standard'.  <p>

A number of difficulties are still to be resolved and EURO-REVES has
given itself three years to identify them and to examine possible
solutions. For practical purposes, the work of the network is divided
into three sub-committees: Policy Relevance and Conceptual
Harmo-nization; Research Design and Calculation Methods; Mental Health
indicators.  <p>

At present EURO-REVES consists of fifteen teams, representing a wide
range of disciplines emanating from twelve European
countries. EURO-REVES hopes to include at least one team from each
member state of the Union (and some from the Eastern European
Countries) in order to initiate calculations of health expectancies in
countries where no calculations have been carried out up to now.  <p>

These teams should include members from the National Institutes of
Statistics implicated in the generation of health statistics and
academics specialized in the measure of health.  <p>

The Newsletter has three objectives : (a) inform the members of the
extended network of internal time schedules and progress of the
EURO-REVES project; (b) distribute throug-hout the Community
information regarding work being carried out in member states on
health expectancies and associated areas; (c) participate in the
creation of a community "sanometric" culture. It is distributed in
each country to the persons in charge of the health report, health and
disability survey, survey methods, mortality and health statistics.
<p>

EURO-REVES seeks to formalize early attempts to coordinate
calcu-lations within a European context. If the principal objective of
social and health systems is not only to prolong life but also to
maintain its quality in terms of autonomy and social func-tioning for
as long as possible, then health expectancy comes close in theory to
an ideal indicator for monitoring the realisation of health objectives
in Europe. The Union has declared its responsibility for the
development of a common European point of view in this
area. Institutions such as EUROSTAT will be able to efficiently
harmonize European health surveys if there exists true European
'sanometrics'.  <p>


<p>


<p>

Jean-Marie Robine
<p>

Project leader
<p>

n°1 - January 1995
<p>


<p>


<p>

<p>
Editorial
<p>

<p>

<p>

<p>

<p>

<p>


<p>