The European Union has launched a new open access health information wiki to give access to “reliable and comparable data” about health across the region.

Known as HEIDI (Health in Europe: Information and Data Interface), the website offers content written by an approved list of health experts and went live last month.

Aimed at patients, health professionals and “anyone who is interested”, European Commissioner for Health John Dalli said the site would present the “latest up-to-date data and information on health issues at European level”.

“HEIDI brings data, comparable across Europe, to the fingertips of the people that matter. It serves to develop policies based on evidence, policies which improve the health of us all,” he said.

“There is also a similarity with the fictional Heidi. In Johanna Spyri's book, she nursed her friend Clara back to health. Our own HEIDI can help us do the same, this time improving the health of all Europeans.”

It contains data on health status, determinants, diseases, health systems, trends, institutional and policy aspects and its data can be sorted per year, by country and by region.

For those in pharma, the site's wealth of information on topics such as tobacco control or Europe's cancer burden and its links to reports on men's and women's health should be particularly useful.

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