The general objective of this proposal is the development of indicators to monitor the health status of migrants in Europe by using existing health related databases and surveys. Furthermore, a European network of epidemiological observatories on migrants’ health will be established. This network will generate a European overview of comparable and exchangeable data on socio-demographic and health profile of migrants for selected health problems. Specific attention will be paid to the conceptual, methodological, ethical and practical issue of identifying ethnic minorities in health databases and to the assessment of valid comparisons between migrant groups within countries and between countries.

The indicator development will be compatible with ECHI (European Community Health Indicators) framework developed by the European Commission. The developes indicators will be juged on their validity, feasibility and sustainability.

We shall actively identify as many health related databases in Europe containing ethnic specific data
Subsequently, we focus on five critical health areas concerning ethnic health differences in Western Europe, and on three critical health areas concerning health differences between Roma and indigenous population in Central Eastern Europe.
This results in an overview of appropriate datasets of which the geographical coverage for each critical area will be assessed. We aim at datasets from at lleast 6 different EU countries per critical area in Western countries and four concerning health data on Roma.
At least three indicators will be developed that assess relative differences for each critival area between specific ethnic minority and indigenous populations (e.g. relative index of health differences for specific ethnics populations).

This procedure will result in at least one indicator per critical area that should encompass the relative differences between ethnic populations