[4 years of electronic data processing of serial school health data. Current situation and prospects]

The school health service of the city of Basle is storing the routinly collected data not only in the personal records of each child but also on a data banc for several years now. The data concern developmental and health status of each child and the anamnestic informations given by his parents. The children are examined at the age of 5, 10 and 14 years. On the average nearly 6,000 children are screened each year. Annual evaluations of the data provide an overview of the present health situation of the youth and trends in morbidity, immunisation etc. E.g. gives a comparison of 10 years old Italian and Swiss children evidence that their average weight is significantly different while their size is nearly equal. Four years ago the ADP-system was reorganized in order to link each child's data of the three screening examinations at the three ages. Thus not only cross sectional but also longitudinal studies can be performed in future. It will enable to monitor growth and development of the children and to evaluate the outcome of the referals to therapeutic and preventive measures. At present the data of more than 22,000 children are stored, i.e. of 5,500 children of the Kindergarten, of 7,500 of the 4.th class (primary school) and 9,000 of the 8.th class (intermediate school). An attempt will be made to replace the present data input system (typing) by the application of a mark sense reader. This will avoid the present delay in data input and improve the accuracy of the data. A special effort has to be made in order to fulfill the new legislations concerning confidentiality.