This project measured and analysed the target efficiency of the minimum income benefit and its predecessor benefit called monetary social assistance, the benefits of last resort in Austria. It provided an up-to-date estimate of the size and determinants of non-take-up of minimum income benefit for the year 2015 as well as of monetary social assistance for the year 2009 and compared it also with the situation back in 2003.

The annual European conference on the Day of Persons with Disabilities took place on the 3 and 4 December 2018. Hosted by the European Commission, in partnership with the European Disability Forum, this event is part of the EU's wider efforts to promote the mainstreaming of disability issues and to raise awareness of the everyday challenges faced by persons with disabilities. Dr. Magdi Birtha, Researcher at the European Centre was acting as Rapporteur at the EDPD and prepared the conference report.

The study takes as its starting point the increasing attention being afforded to the promotion of older people’s rights and to the implications of applying a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to the provision of care and support services. The aim of the index under development is to enable the monitoring of policies related to the care and support of older people across countries, and to assess the extent to which countries are protecting and enforcing the rights of older people with care needs.

This projects addressed the multiple challenges at the interfaces between health systems and long-term care (LTC) to develop recommendations and solutions with improved outcomes in terms of quality of care from a patient’s perspective, effectiveness, efficiency and equity. Evidence was gathered from experiences and models across seven countries of the WHO European Region.