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The European Journal of Public Health 2007 17(Supplement 1):10-13; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm070
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Health services and systems research in Europe: overview of the literature 1995–2005

Diana M.J. Delnoij and Peter P. Groenewegen

NIVEL (Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research), The Netherlands

Correspondence: Diana Delnoij, PhD, NIVEL(Netherlands Institute for Health Services Reasearch), PO Box 1568, 3500 BN Utrecht, The Netherlands, tel: +31302729847, fax +31302729729, e-mail: d.delnoij{at}nivel.nl

Received June 7, 2007 , accepted June 7, 2007

Introduction: Our objective, within the collaborative study SPHERE (Strengthening Public Health Research in Europe) is to give an overview of health services and health systems research in Europe, based on a search of the literature in PubMed and Embase. Method: The method used in this study consisted of: (i) A bibliometric analysis, and (ii) Classification of health services and systems research according to pre-defined criteria for a sample of 500 publications in the PubMed search. Results: Health services research is particularly strong in the Nordic countries. The number of publications on health services research has increased steadily between 1996 and 2004, 60% of the references found had a keyword related to ‘patient’. More than one-third of the references had a keyword related to ‘hospital’. The keyword ‘general practitioner’ occurred in 16% of the cases. The emphasis on this keyword was higher in those countries where the GP traditionally holds a strong position, but also in the new member states, Estonia and Slovenia. Of a smaller sample classified in depth; 57% addressed problems of efficiency and quality improvement; 27% focused on the organization of health care, cohesion and arrangement of supply according to needs and demands; only 10% addressed problems of inequalities and distribution of services. Conclusions: Health services research is a growing domain of research. As an applied discipline, health services research can be expected to closely follow political agendas. The majority of studies focus on improving the efficiency and quality of the system. Only 10% of the studies address inequalities in health utilization.

Keywords: bibliometry, Europe, health services research, literature review, public health research


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