EURO-MOMO (European monitoring of excess mortality for public health action) is a new EU-wide project whose aim is to develop and strengthen real-time mortality monitoring across Europe. This will enhance the management of serious public health risks such as pandemic influenza, heat waves and cold snaps.

Background

Mortality is a basic indicator of health and an understanding of its epidemiology is fundamental for effective public health planning. Vital statistics are accessible in all European countries, but in most instances these data are not readily available in a timely manner, limiting their value during health crises or imminent threats (e.g. pandemic influenza, AIDS, SARS). As these threats are not restricted by borders, a collaborative approach to detect and estimate the magnitude of deaths is required. This is especially important as data pooling increases the power to detect real changes.

During a pandemic, mortality monitoring can provide a robust way to monitor the pandemic’s progress and its public health impact. Mortality monitoring can provide such estimates which will be important to guide and prioritise health service response and decision making. Mortality monitoring will also be valuable for determining the impact of extreme environmental conditions on human life (heat waves, cold snaps). Recent climatic events resulted in periods of excess mortality in many European countries, and will occur again in the future. The timely assessment of the impact of such exposures is needed to guide public health measures, for example to help vulnerable groups. Experiences from countries with existing mortality monitoring systems demonstrated the usefulness of such public health intelligence.

Mortality monitoring methodology is complex and there is a risk of European countries sharing incompatible information if different methodologies are used. The lack of an agreed common methodology to assess mortality during a major health crisis affecting several European states limits the use of this potentially very powerful information. Thus, a timely mapping of the impact of health threats on mortality across different countries would greatly benefit from a uniform approach.

EURO-MOMO

EURO-MOMO is a Europe-wide network, launched on 1 February 2008, co-funded by the European Commission (DG SANCO).  The network is co-ordinated by the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, and has 19 participating countries, including the UK.  The overarching objective is to develop and operate a coordinated approach to real-time mortality monitoring across Europe. This will enhance the European capacity to assess and manage serious public health risks such as pandemic influenza and other emerging infections as well as environmental conditions with an impact on public health, e.g., heat waves and cold snaps. The specific objectives of the project are,

1. To map existing and planned data collection systems aimed at monitoring mortality in real-time
2. To identify minimal requirements to monitor mortality in real time at national and international levels
3. To describe and analyse rapid changes and trends in crude mortality in different European settings
4. To explore the added value of pooling data on excess mortality, mortality changes & trends in several European countries
5. To develop common methods to collect and analyse data on mortality in real-time in European countries
6. To test the real-time monitoring system in selected pilot sites
7. To outline how real-time monitoring of mortality can be linked to national and European public health preparedness and response plans