In 1997 a Health Interview Survey takes place in Belgium.  A total of 10 000 individuals will be interviewed.  The individuals are selected within families which are selected by a multistage sampling procedure from the National Register.  The individuals are questionned on a variety of health related domains: general health perception, morbidity and functional status, use of health services, life style and socio-economic characteristics.  The paper gives a general description of the objectives, the questionnaire (content and development), the sampling procedure and the pilot study.