Promising Practice

Public health indicators of Roma people in the Republic of Croatia

This research was based on pairing the aggregated data of the Croatian Institute of Public Health from public health databases and registers (health data) with data of the Ministry of Interior Affairs (ethnic data) with the objective of informing public health policies relating to the health of the Roma population. This research is the first research based on combining nationally representative healthcare data and ethnic data in Croatia.
Country
Croatia
Type
Institutional and structural guidelines
Foster inter-institutional cooperation
Facilitate effective use
Operational guidelines
Ensure comprehensiveness
Ensure regular and timely data collection
Enhance validity and reliability
Ensure representativeness
Improve comparability
Category
Racial or ethnic origin

 


In this page:


Why was the practice needed?

The practice was needed to achieve the necessary preconditions for the implementation of public health policies relating to the health of the Roma population as a vulnerable group. It was necessary to create a system that would make it possible to create an accurate picture of Roma health from available and routine public health statistics, in order to focus the planned health measures on accurate indicators and evidence.

This research is the first based on combining healthcare data and ethnic data in Croatia. Even though the Roma people (as well as other citizens) were included in the national healthcare statistics, the main challenge was to include in the analysis only the data that refer to Roma citizens, while there was no possibility of differentiating by ethnic origin. This practice represents a certain innovation in the context of policy planning, since all the previous policies were created based on approximations of the healthcare needs of the Roma population, not on accurate health care indicators that stem from the healthcare system.

How was it implemented?

This research was based on pairing the aggregated data of the Croatian Institute of Public Health from public health databases and registers (health data) with data of the Ministry of Interior Affairs (ethnic data). The healthcare data that were used derived from the internal databases and registries, and referred to the following areas of health: hospitalisations, primary healthcare system, diabetes, drug abuse, mental health, the Colon Cancer Preventive Programme, women’s health and disability.

The research collected data from 19,594 Roma people in Croatia, after establishing the prerequisites for further analysis and planning the interventions to inform the public health policy framework.

Outputs

  • Report with the main research results and findings.

Key success factors

  • Interinstitutional cooperation based on the strategic framework.
  • Potential of the results to inform healthcare policy planning processes.
  • High level of national representativeness of the sample, which allows comparison.

Technical information

  • Data sources covered: Administrative data
  • Areas of life covered: Health; Access to goods and services
  • Target audience: Roma people in Croatia
  • Duration: Research during 2019; results published in May 2020
  • Geographical scope: National (Croatia)
  • Leading institution: Croatian Institute of Public Health (Hrvatski zavod za javno zdravstvo))
  • Other organisations involved/consulted: This research was made in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior Affairs and under the Ministry of Health. The Personal Data Protection Agency (Agencija za zaštitu osobnih podataka) was consulted.
  • Financial & human resources: Budget: Data not provided; Source of the budget: Croatian Institute of Public Health; Staff: Croatian Institute of Public Health (0.1 full-time equivalent)

Contacts

Croatian Institute of Public Health (Hrvatski zavod za javno zdravstvo): ravnateljstvo@hzjz.hr

Ms Vesna Štefančić Martić, MD, MPH: vesna.stefancic@hzjz.hr

https://www.hzjz.hr