The World Health Organization's strategy of health for all 2000 (HFA 2000) has, among other things, attempted to reduce the actual differences in health status between and within countries. In order to evaluate the progress made towards the attainment of the HFA strategy, each country reports their status of achievement to the World Health Organization every 3 years. This study investigates the extensiveness and the methodology of interview surveys which measure health as a source of information for HFA in the European Region. This study focuses on the comparability of data which derive from the interview survey. The study shows that the different questions (related to the same indicator) in interview surveys mostly lead to incomparable information because there is a lack of uniformity both in phrasing and in the standards and methods used.