The European Alcohol and Health Forum: First Monitoring Progress Report.

The European Alcohol and Health Forum was launched in June 2007 following the adoption by the European Commission in October 2006 of the EU strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm. It began as a stakeholder platform of 50 founding members from production and sales organisations, media and advertising organisations, NGOs that work to limit alcohol-related harm, research organisations, professional bodies and others. Membership of the Forum is voluntary and members are expected to commit formally and publicly to concrete actions to reduce alcohol-related harm. These concrete actions are referred to as "commitments." Each commitment must be put in writing in a standardised commitment form, which also includes monitoring information. Such information includes details of the objectives of the commitments, resources allocated to them and outputs produced, as well as dissemination of the results of the commitments alongside other information.

Sustainable Development in the National Health Service (NHS): The Views and Values of NHS Leaders.

This article presents National Health Service (NHS) leaders' views of priorities and approaches regarding sustainable development in the NHS. It was produced in close collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK) NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU), and it represents the first systematic picture of leadership views in the NHS. It also provides a commentary on ways forward. Analysis draws on results of a survey of 172 leaders of NHS organisations (primarily chief executives), 12 follow-up interviews, interviews with the SDU, and additional data and literature searches. A major conclusion is that almost all leaders consider sustainable development to be important for the NHS and that a focus on sustainability can most likely be aligned with delivering other corporate goals. Aligned incentives at all organisational levels and support for diversity are considered necessary to achieve sustainability, as well as relevant performance metrics. The main barrier is organisational culture.

Postmenopausal Osteoporosis Management: A Review of the Evidence to Inform the Development of Quality Indicators.

This article aims to inform the development of quality indicators for postmenopausal osteoporosis management through (a) assessing the evidence for screening and diagnosis of osteoporosis and related risk factors, and for prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and osteoporosis-related fractures; (b) describing current practice for managing postmenopausal osteoporosis in Europe; and (c) highlighting existing gaps in the evidence base and management practices in Europe. Analyses involved a comprehensive review of reviews regarding the screening and diagnosis of osteoporosis and related risk factors and the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and osteoporosis-related fractures. While this identified a well-developed evidence base on the effects of selected treatments on clinical outcomes of postmenopausal osteoporosis and associated fractures, and on the usefulness of selected simple risk factor assessment tools to identify postmenopausal women who would benefit from further diagnostic assessment, uncertainties remain regarding for example the optimal use of pharmacological interventions for preventive purposes and the effectiveness of population-based screening. We also carried out case study reviews of current practices for managing postmenopausal osteoporosis in England, France, Germany and Spain. We identify a need for the establishment of routine monitoring systems to enable better understanding of contemporary patterns and trends and identify care gaps in the management of postmenopausal osteoporosis and associated fractures. Such analyses are crucial to inform targeted strategies and policies to effectively address the burden of osteoporosis and associated fractures, which is sizable and set to increase across Europe. We set out considerations as a starting point for the further development of quality measures for postmenopausal osteoporosis in Europe.

Assessing the Impacts of Revising the Tobacco Products Directive: Study to Support a DG SANCO Impact Assessment.

Tobacco use is one of the largest avoidable causes of morbidity and premature death in the EU. Whilst smoking prevalence in the EU has been declining over the past 30 years, smoking has remained more prevalent among men than women in the EU-27, with some of the new Member States reporting the widest gaps between male and female smokers. For young smokers (13 to 15 years old) this situation is somewhat reversed, with slightly more girls than boys smoking. Against this background, the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) considered a revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC across five general areas: scope of the directive, labelling requirements, registration and market control fees, ingredients, and sales arrangements. More specifically, the types of policy options under consideration included (but were not limited to): an increase of warning label sizes on the back of packaging to 100%, a restriction for the display of products at retail outlets and an introduction of additional measurement method for TNCO (the modified ISO method) with maximum limits set accordingly. DG SANCO commissioned RAND Europe to provide support in assessing the potential health, macroeconomic, and compliance cost and administrative burden impacts of revising the Tobacco Products Directive. In addition to assessing impacts, the study provides an up-to-date overview of the evidence and basis for current tobacco product regulation that may be of interest to a wider audience interested in tobacco control policies.

Evaluation of DG SANCO Data Management Practices.

The European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General (DG SANCO) commissioned RAND Europe to provide support in developing a comprehensive data strategy for DG SANCO that meets the needs of increasingly evidence-based policymaking in the future. This work builds on previous work by RAND Europe conducted for DG SANCO, mapping out international good practice of data management. The work described in this study had two aims: to assess the current data management practices within DG SANCO that relate to the four specific issues identified by DG SANCO: data needs, DG SANCO data sources, key partnerships on data, and data quality; and to develop, on the basis of this review, recommendations for improving DG SANCO's current data management and the definition of DG SANCO's Good Practice Model for Data Strategy. This article presents the findings of RAND Europe's analysis.