Dear Colleagues,

Chronic diseases are a threat to people’s health and to the sustainability of health organisations. Despite the considerable amount of research conducted during the past few decades to describe the epidemiology and the impact on the health of chronic diseases, because of the population aging, the disease burden and multimorbidity have increased, leading to higher patient frailty. Therefore, new evidence is needed to assess the impact of chronicity in the population, its evolution over time, the impact of new technologies in disease management and to design appropriate adaptation to health policies. In this context, the availability of health data from secondary sources, such as administrative or healthcare utilization databases, medical record databases, population-based disease registries, hospital-based disease registries, health surveys, represents a useful tool to estimate disease burden and monitoring and assessing healthcare interventions. The large population covered, the continuity and timeliness of data availability, low cost, and applicability for studying real-world practice are characteristics that have contributed to the increased use of these secondary data sources in epidemiological studies. On the other hand, challenges in using these data and strategies to improve their usefulness concern the quality of the data and the application of rigorous and standardized methodology for planning and conducting observational studies, which are rapidly evolving.

This Special Issue of IJERPH is addressed to studies using secondary health data for monitoring chronic health conditions, analysing their determinants, and evaluating healthcare interventions in chronic patients.

Prof. Dr. Edlira Skrami
Dr. Davide Sisti
Prof. Dr. Rosaria Gesuita
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• secondary health databases
• chronic diseases
• real-world evidence
• real-world data
• methodology
• epidemiology
• disease burden
• healthcare assessment
• healthcare monitoring
• value-based healthcare
• cost-effectiveness