Portugal

Healthcare System

Portugal provides universal healthcare to all its residents, including the unemployed and illegal immigrants. There are also health insurance schemes that provide coverage for specific sectors, both public and private. Citizens can also opt for private health insurance schemes. The system providing healthcare in Portugal is called Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS), managed by the Ministry of Health, and is mainly funded through general taxation, but a third of its funding comes from the private sector such as out-of-pocket payments via co-funding or direct payment by the patient.

Primary care in Portugal is delivered through a combination of public and private healthcare providers, with the National Health Service (NHS) primarily offering primary and acute general and specialized hospital care. While dental consultations, diagnostic services, renal dialysis, and rehabilitation services are mostly offered by private healthcare providers, these services are often funded by the government under contractual agreements with the NHS. Secondary and tertiary care is mainly provided in hospitals organized into Hospital Centres based on geographical location.

Portugal's main statistical authority is the Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), responsible for the production and dissemination of official statistics that ensure the supervision and the technical and scientific coordination of the National Statistical System.

Registries

Database: Mortality by Malignant Neoplasms

[1] [2]

Primary purpose: Provide information regarding the national mortality and its social and demographic distribution.

Sponsor, manager or home institution: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE).

Type of information: Number of deaths filtered by data reference period, region of residence, sex, age group, and death cause (malignant neoplasms).

The following indicators are also available and can be filtered by sex and region of residence:

• Potential years of life lost by type of cancer.
• Rate of potential years of life lost by type of cancer.
• Mortality rate (per 100 000 inhabitants or in percentage) by type of cancer.
• Standardized mortality rate (per 100 000 inhabitants) by type of cancer.
• Standardized mortality rate (per 100 000 inhabitants) by type of cancer regarding people 65 years of age and older.
• Standardized mortality rate (per 100 000 inhabitants) by type of cancer regarding people younger than 65 years of age.

The list of variables included in Patient level data is longer and can be checked in this website.

Source of information: Data collection through the notary offices and registered in the Integrated System for Civil Registration and Identification (SIRIC).

Data level: Regional level (open access) and Patient level (restricted access).

Number of Records: Unknown.

Date range: Regional level (2002 onwards) and Patient level (1998 onwards).

Cancer Areas of Interest: To be added.

Data access: Regional level data is openly available here. To ask for patient level data, follow the instructions presented in this webpage.

Information/contact for data request: Contact information.

Database: National Health Interview Survey (INS)

[3]

Primary purpose: Publish statistics on health status, health care and health determinants, and socio-demographic characteristics of the population to enable the study and improvement of these areas.

Sponsor, manager or home institution: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE).

Type of information: Regarding cancer prevention information, contains the percentage of the female resident population aged 50 to 69 years who reported having had mammography done in the 2 years prior to the interview and the female resident population aged 20 to 69 years who reported having had cervical cytology done in the 3 years prior to the interview, both filtered by education level and region of residence.

The list of variables included in Patient level data is longer and can be checked in this website.

Source of information: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE)

Data level: National level (open access) and Patient level (restricted access).

Number of Records: Unknown.

Date range: 2005 onwards. It occurs on a five-year basis.

Cancer Areas of Interest: Breast and cervix neoplasms.

Data access: Mammography examination by education level and region of residence (2005 and 2014 onwards); Cervical cytology by education level and region of residence (2005 and 2014 onwards).

Information/contact for data request: Contact information.

Database: Health Care Personnel Statistics

[4]

Primary purpose: Publish statistics on the number of health professionals registered in the professional organizations.

Sponsor, manager or home institution: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE).

Type of information: Number of medical specialists filtered by place of residence, gender and specialty, subspecialty or competence. Considering cancer area, the database presents information about the number of medical and pediatric oncology professionals.

Source of information: Regarding the information about oncologists, the source is the Medical Association.

Data level: Regional level.

Number of Records: Unknown.

Date range: 2011 onwards.

Cancer Areas of Interest: Unknown.

Data access: Open access in this webpage.

Information/contact for data request: Contact information.

[Database: Cancer Screening]

Primary purpose: Promote the early diagnosis of cancer in order to start treatment early and thus decrease the national cancer mortality rate.

Sponsor, manager or home institution: Direção Geral da Saúde (DGS).

Type of information: Information regarding breast, cervical, colon and rectal cancer screening. Examples of available data are the screening adherence rate, test positivity rate, geographic coverage rate, coverage rate by region, number of eligible population.

Source of information: Forms filled out by the regional Health Administrations and the Autonomous Regions of Portugal.

Data level: Regional level.

Number of Records:

Date range: The project occurs 1990 onwards. Data is available 2015 onwards.

Cancer Areas of Interest:

Data access:

Information/contact for data request: [ Contact information].