Overview
A national Health Interview Survey (HIS) provides an overall picture of the health status of the population and allows to identify the main health problems, as well as the social and behavioral factors that influence them. This information enables health authorities to pursue a proactive health policy aimed at improving public health and addressing the needs of groups at risk. Researchers, experts and the press use the results of the HIS.
Sciensano organized a large-scale Health Interview Survey (HIS) among the Belgian population for the first time in 1997, and is repeated every 4 to 5 years since. Sciensano will organize the 7th HIS in 2023.
The HIS collects information on a wide range of health topics: physical and mental health, lifestyle, use of health care and preventive services, perception of the physical and social environment, etc. Furthermore, the HIS has been part of the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) since 2013. This allows not only to study time trends in different health domains and in health inequalities, but also to compare the Belgian results with those of the other EU Member States.
On 21 March 2016, an agreement was concluded between the federal government and the authorities referred to in Articles 128, 130 and 135 of the Constitution regarding the organization and financing of the Health Interview Survey 2018. This agreement provides the possibility of making the survey data available:
- for analyses conducted at the commissioners’ request (without payment)
- to municipal and provincial authorities and to administrations at the federal, regional or community levels, other than those who fall under the responsibility of the HIS commissioners and who have financed an over-sampling (without payment)
- to international public health or statistics organizations (without payment)
- to university research groups or groups associated with a university (500 euros per application except for master’s projects and international organisations).
The data of the HIS 2018, which also includes the data from previous editions, is subject to the general data protection regulations (GDPR), the Framework Act of 30 July 2018 and the Act of 5 September 2018 establishing the Information Security Committee.
Demographics
Dataset
The procedure for obtaining the HIS data is initially done by completing the electronic application form.
There are 2 possibilities:
- If you only request variables that are included in the codebook of the anonymous database of the HIS 2018, the data transfer process will then be quite short and you only need to sign a data transfer agreement.
- If, on the other hand, your request requires a link to another database or concerns variables that are not included in this codebook (date of birth, detailed information on nationality or country of birth, detailed geographical data), you must submit an application to the Information Security Committee (ISC).
Contact
Sciensano
Rue Juliette Wytsmanstraat 14
1050 Brussels
Belgium