European Public Health News * EUPHA President's column * EUPHA office news * Message from the Regional Director (January 2013)--A Historical Turning Point to Fight Antibiotic Resistance * Increasing Efforts on Vaccine Preventable Diseases in the EU * Three Priorities of the 2013 Work Plan of ECDC * 6TH European Public Health Conference--Health in Europe: Are we there Yet? Learning

Abstract

In this European Public Health News, we have a newcomer: the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has joined our efforts with a column on sustainable European collaboration. The Regional Director of World Health Organization (WHO) Europe announces the setting up of collaboration on antibiotic resistance. The European Commission emphasizes the need for a continuous commitment (on vaccine preventable diseases). The two EUPHA columns not only fully support the European collaboration, continuous commitment and use of networks but also look more critically at the sustainability of these initiatives. Of course the 6th European Public Health Conference offers an excellent opportunity to address continuous European commitment towards public health in Europe. # EUPHA President's column {#article-title-2} On 5 December 2012, Marieke Verschuuren, President of the EUPHA section on Public Health Monitoring and Reporting, and I sent a letter to European Union (EU) Health Commissioner Borg on behalf of EUPHA. In this letter, EUPHA expressed its concerns related to the lack of sustainability of health information activities at the EU level. The main messages in this letter are in line with the letter that was sent to former Commissioner Dalli by 13 Directors of national public health institutes in EU Member States in April 2012. It is widely acknowledged that public health monitoring and reporting are essential elements of an evidence-based public health policy cycle. At EU level, the European Commission has been actively engaged in stimulating the development of a public health monitoring and reporting system since the 1990s, when the Health Monitoring Programme was launched. Since then, a multitude of EU-funded projects, networks and Joint Actions have been and are working on specific elements of that monitoring and reporting system, such as indicators, data and measuring instruments. Many of these projects have made a real difference to the development of health policy and understanding …