The aim of the EuroMOMO project (European monitoring of excess mortality for public health action) is to operate coordinated timely mortality monitoring and analyses in as many European countries as possible, using a standardized approach to ensure that signals are comparable between countries.

EuroMOMO thereby aims to enhance European capacity to assess and manage serious public health risks such as pandemic influenza and other emerging infections, as well as environmental conditions with an impact on public health, e.g. heat waves or cold snaps.

EuroMOMO activities are addressing the following specific objectives:

1. Quality-checked weekly reports of crude mortality for each country, total and by age group
2. Weekly reports of delays in reporting for each country, total and by age group
3. Weekly comparison of data with expected (calendar-based) mortality for each country, total and by age group
4. Weekly reports of sustained excess mortality patterns for each country, total and by group
5. Comparison of European mortality patterns related to influenza, other pandemics and climate-related patterns

EuroMOMO network activities improve the capacity of member states for generic preparedness and response by providing data that inform crisis management and evaluates impact of public health interventions, and by providing training to generate, analyze and use such data for risk assessment. EuroMOMO in particular increases the capacity to deal with pandemic influenza and tackle European health threats by providing timely data on deaths related to pandemic influenza, newly emerging infections, bioterrorism and other threats, heat waves, cold snaps etc. The data may serve as early warning of impending catastrophes and will provide rapid assessment of the impact of threats to guide further policy development and risk management.