GEDA: Telephone Health Survey 2008/2009

Project manager: Dr. Cornelia Lange (Unit 24)

The Robert Koch Institute conducts regular telephone health surveys as a part of its nationwide health monitoring. These studies complement studies and surveys such as DEGS or KiGGS and enable the government to respond quickly and flexibly in the field of health policy because this is a fast method of collecting data.

The Robert Koch Institute's current telephone survey began in July 2008 and is titled "German Health Update" (GEDA). 25,000 people aged 18 and over will be interviewed by April 2009. The states (Länder) Brandenburg and Saarland are providing additional funding for this nationwide study in order to obtain information on health that is representative of their populations. The survey focuses in particular on the following subjects

• subjective feeling of health
• health-related behaviour, e.g. physical exercise, diet, alcohol consumption, smoking
• chronic diseases
• gastrointestinal diseases
• injuries
• health consequences and disabilities
• vaccinations
• organ donation
• health-related support and stress
• mental health
• extent to which interviewees make use of healthcare services
• socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, education, occupational status, migration background.

Protection of Privacy

The Robert Koch Institute strictly observes the Federal Data Protection Act [BDSG] when collecting data. Germany's federal and regional data-protection commissioners have been informed about the surveys and declared they have no objections relating to data privacy. All data are collected and all evaluations are conducted anonymously. The survey data are not connected with either the respondent's telephone number or his/her name or address. Telephone numbers and survey data are always kept separate. All commercial use of data is excluded, and no data are passed on to insurance companies, health insurance funds, government agencies, etc. Similarly, no telephone numbers are passed on to third parties.