[Forecasts of morbidity based on population projections: what can health monitoring contribute?].

It is assumed that an aging population will lead to an increase of incidence and prevalence rates of many diseases, thus, resulting in rising health care costs in Germany. Forecasts of morbidity will have to provide plausible information on probable trends of incidence and prevalence rates in order to derive measures to be taken within the health care system. These forecasts are based on population projections considering demographic change. Often, a simple methodical approach is applied by constantly extrapolating empirical morbidity rates into the future. This approach not only takes into account changes resulting from advanced medical care and prevention measures, but also improved health behavior among the population. The dimensions of these changes are still not known. Nevertheless, present trends, which could be utilized for developing dynamic scenarios of future processes, can be identified. For this, the health monitoring administrated by the Robert Koch Institute is a valuable data source. Using these data, morbidity rates and present trends regarding important diseases, which are not available from other data sources, can be determined.