Nordic women's-health data dictionary

Women’s bodies and lives become legible to evidence generation through the terminology and variable architecture that European health data systems carry, meaning data dictionaries that include menstrual cycle characteristics, menopause staging, PCOS phenotyping, endometriosis severity, pregnancy outcomes, and sex-disaggregated reporting.

EHDS implementing acts are being finalised through 2027. Article 51 data categories are now published, and no women’s health-specific variables are named in the implementing material reviewed. If the Nordic system does not advocate for variables in this window, the gaps will lock into European data dictionaries for a generation. A coordinated Nordic technical brief before the 26 March 2027 deadline, about ten months from publication, would let the Nordics, already leading on registry data infrastructure, set the European standard rather than inherit one written without women’s variables in mind. Sitra’s VALO2 programme, the Nordic Health Data Summit in Oslo in September 2026, the NMC, and the five national digital health authorities are the convergence points.