Policy for initiating exclusive breastfeeding exists

Member States of the European Region of WHO have adopted the European strategy for Child and Adolescent Health and Development 2015-2020. Its aim is to support member states in developing strategies and policies to reduce the burden of avoidable disease, disability and mortality of children and adolescents, and for them to achieve their full potential and development.

The data presented here was collected by the Child and Adolescent Health Programme at the Division of Noncommunicable Diseases and Promoting Health through the Life course, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe.

The dataset is based on selected aspects reported by Member States in the baseline survey on the implementation of the European child and adolescent health strategy 2015-2020 as well as data from the WHO country profiles on child and adolescent health.

Questionnaires were sent to ministries of health of the 53 countries in the WHO EURO region on areas related to the strategy, to document how well policies are aligned with the Strategy. Albania, Greece, Italy, Monaco, San Marino did not participate in the survey and are marked as “did not participate’’. In cases where countries did not respond to a particular question, these were marked as “no response’’ and where no responses were required, these were marked as “answer not required’’.