The major aims of IDD prevention programmes are reducing the prevalence and incidence of thyroid diseases and consequently decreasing the expenditure in health-care systems on thyroid diseases.
Studies on urinary iodine monitor the iodine status of populations and may detect deviations of the optimal status. They are, however, not sufficient to evaluate IDD monitoring programmes.
EUthyroid is collecting registry data on thyroid diseases and related treatments
- To relate prevalence and incidence of thyroid diseases and treatments to the iodine status in different populations
- To observe their prevalence and incidence trend
- To assess the cost effectiveness of IDD prevention
Thus, EUthyroid aims to fill a vacuum of outcome and economic research in Europe by pooling and analysing thyroid-related registry data from different countries – a challenge that has not been met so far for on this continent. Moreover, the project will capitalise on the fragmented nature of Europe to identify suitable best-practice models amongst the national programmes, which will provide not only theoretical but hard data about the socioeconomic effects of IDD prevention.
