Selecting and defining indicators for diabetes surveillance in Germany

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Policy

Background:

• Diabetes affects a large population, posing significant public health challenges.
• Effective surveillance is crucial for managing chronic diseases and informing health policy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a comprehensive public health surveillance system for diabetes.
• To define a harmonized set of indicators for long-term, comparable data collection.

Main Methods:

• Extensive literature review to identify relevant indicators.
• Structured consensus process to finalize a set of core and supplementary indicators.
• Categorization of indicators into four key fields of activity related to diabetes management.

Main Results:

• A harmonized set of 30 core and 10 supplementary indicators for diabetes surveillance was defined.
• Indicators cover reducing diabetes risk, early detection/treatment, complication reduction, and disease burden/cost reduction.

Conclusions:

• The developed indicator set provides a foundation for efficient diabetes surveillance.
• Future efforts will focus on integrating secondary data sources and expanding the system to other chronic diseases.