Would you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, representative data from about 18,000 participants aged between 0 and 18 years of age exist for the precise assessment of the physical and emotional health of the young German population.

This publication is the first basic description of the German Health Survey of Children and Adolescents (KiGGS) and its results. An additional general publication about the study, its methods and design, is offered in Kurth BM, et al: "The challenge of comprehensively mapping children's health in a nation-wide health survey: design of the German KiGGS-Study," BMC Public Health 8: 196, 2008.

This survey is unique for Europe because of its sample size, its age range, and its response rate, as demonstrated in the EU Health Surveys Information Database.

 How did you become involved in this research, and were there any problems along the way?

I am the Head of the Department for Health Reporting and Epidemiology (with about 120 co-workers) in the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the central German Public Health institution. We are responsible for developing knowledge of the health status, health behavior, and health risks of the German population.

Several representative Health Interview and Examination Surveys had been carried out covering the adult population in Germany. However, no such study existed for the 0- to 17-year-old at the turn of the millennium. Available data of the health of children and adolescents included vital statistics, administrative medical data, records from routine medical check-ups of children starting school, and various regional epidemiological studies. This patchwork of data and results was of limited value for assessing the general health of the young generation in Germany. Therefore the German Federal Ministry of Health commissioned the RKI to design and conduct a nationwide study on the health of the young generation.

In 1998, the RKI began to develop strategies and instruments based on its extensive experience from health surveys of adults, on the thorough literature reviews, and on close cooperation with other experts. After evaluation of the study protocol by scientific reviewers and approval by ethics committees and data protection officers, a feasibility study was carried out in 2001-2002.

In the light of this pre-test, the study plan and all procedures were optimized for the main survey with some 18,000 subjects. The German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents ("KiGGS"), carried out from May 2003 until May 2003 in 167 study centers in Germany, was jointly funded by the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Research and Education, and by the RKI.

Where do you see your research leading in the future?

The data fill a longstanding information gap. The main aims of this survey were:

• To close information gaps in the field of children’s and adolescents' health.

• To obtain data for epidemiological research.

• To obtain baseline data for longitudinal epidemiological studies in children and adolescents.

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the health care system for the young generation.

• To help prioritizing public health measures.

• To give recommendations to health policy makers for improving prevention and intervention strategies.

• To improve the long-term health of children and adolescents.

Most of these aims have been reached. Data from the KiGGS survey are made available to the scientific community as a public use file.

98% of the KiGGS participants agreed to participate again in a follow-up study. Just now we are starting the follow-up as a telephone interview survey with our KiGGS participants. The next examination survey is planned after three years. The results of the cohort studies will answer many of the questions which could not be answered by a cross-sectional study.

Do you foresee any social or political implications for your research?

In the analyses, conclusions were drawn for setting priorities in improving long-term health of children and adolescents and to give recommendations to health policymakers for improving prevention and intervention strategies in Germany. A new strategy of the German government "to improve health of children and adolescents" is based on the results of the KiGGS study. Our new Health Surveys will help to evaluate the anticipated results of the strategy.

Dr. rer. nat. Bärbel-Maria Kurth
Head, Department of Health Reporting and Epidemiology
Robert Koch Institute
Berlin, Germany
Duetsche Welle/Studiocast:
Projekt Zukunft: Dr. Bärbel-Maria Kurth, Robert Koch-Institut
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KEYWORDS: HEALTH SURVEY; CHILDREN; ADOLESCENTS; EXAMINATION; INTERVIEW; MODULES; QUALITY MANAGEMENT.