Background Although various injury data sources exist in Europe; many lack sufficient size, scope, detail or comparability, to support injury prevention research or policy development. Emergency department (ED) records offer one of the most comprehensive sources of injury data; however, heterogeneous hospital data collection systems prevent comparative analyses between countries.

Methods As part of the Joint Action on Monitoring Injuries in Europe (JAMIE) project, and now the BRIDGE-Health (BRidging Information and Data Generation for Evidence-based Health Policy and Research) development; the European Commission (EC) funded the development of a standardised European Injury Data Base (IDB). The IDB comprises two datasets: the Full Data Set (FDS) and Minimum Data Set (MDS). Although the MDS collects less detail than the FDS; it is simpler for countries to adopt, and still sufficient to allow enumeration of injuries in key areas such as the home, leisure, work, road, falls, sports, and self-harm. Training, guides and rigorous quality checks, ensure consistency across participating countries.

Results To date, 26 countries have submitted 7,170,069 ED records (years 2009–2014) to the IDB in MDS format, and 20 countries have provided reference population data, enabling the calculation of incidence rates. As an exemplar, in 2013, incidence rates for all injuries varied between 11.43% in Luxembourg to 3.98% in Finland; the reasons behind these variations will be discussed at the conference. The MDS has provided a valuable source of data for several organisations across Europe, and can be accessed via several channels, including an online tool. The MDS strives to contribute data to the “European Core Health Indicators” (ECHI), “home, leisure and school accidents” (ECHI29) indicator.

Conclusions The MDS provides Europe with a valuable source of comparable injury data. Work is currently underway to ensure the MDS data is as valid and representative as possible.