[The German Telephone Health Survey 2003: an instrument of federal health reporting].

The Robert Koch Institute has carried out health surveys at irregular intervals since the 1980s . Internationally telephone surveys have been used to supplement examination surveys for some time. Health interview surveys by telephone provide a timely and inexpensive possibility to build up a time series on health while being flexible enough to cover new health aspects. Health telephone surveys will also serve as a module of a coming health-monitoring system in Germany, which is currently under discussion. From September 2002 to March 2003, 8,313 German-speaking people randomly selected from the resident population aged 18 years and over were asked about topics such as chronic diseases, health behaviour and the extent to which they make use of health care services and others.