Health problems in a Swedish county—what can we learn from official sources?

In view of the epidemiological responsibility that, according to the new Swedish health legislation, will be laid upon the local county councils, there will be increasing demands to identify and monitor the health status of the local population, e.g. the commune. As part of a large scale collaborative project between a central Swedish health planning institute, a local county council and a research department, this paper focuses on the availability and usefulness of the official statistics. The process of community diagnosis is discussed and illustrated by means of a regional mortality display. It is argued that regional epidemiological data will be of major importance for the future planning of preventive programmes where also non-medical solutions are mandatory.