The Global Health Observatory (GHO) is a
public health observatory A public health observatory is an organization or program that monitors and reports on the public health of a particular region or topic in order to inform health policy. Depending on the geographical area or focus of work, it may also be called a " ...
established by the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
(WHO) to share data on global health, including statistics by country and information about specific diseases and health measures.
The GHO tracks important information like "Response to the
Millennium Development Goals
In the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 created following the Millennium Summit, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These w ...
".
History
The GHO was formed in around 2010 from the ashes of the
WHO Statistical Information System, which was "upgraded... to provide you with more data, more tools, more analysis and more reports."
In December 2012, the WHO announced that it was making improvements in its GHO to improve its accessibility and usability by "specialists such as statisticians, epidemiologists, economists and public health researchers as well as anyone with an interest in global health."
Themes
The GHO website is organized around themes. For each theme, key statistics are presented on the associated webpage, and more detailed data and reports are available for download. The themes include:
[
* ]Millennium Development Goals
In the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 created following the Millennium Summit, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These w ...
* Estimates of mortality and global health
Global health is the health of populations in a worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problems th ...
* Health system
A health system, health care system or healthcare system is an organization of people, institutions, and resources that delivers health care services to meet the health needs of target populations.
There is a wide variety of health systems aroun ...
s
* Public health and environment
* Health Equity Monitor
* International Health Regulations Monitoring framework
* Urban health
* Women and health
* Noncommunicable diseases
* Substance use and mental health
* Infectious diseases
* Injuries and violence
Reception and impact
The GHO has been listed by many libraries and dataset listings as a go-to source for information on health statistics. The GHO has also been cited in work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...
in the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
GHO data has also been cited in academic studies on various aspects of global health, particularly for cross-country comparisons.
See also
* The World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
data setsHuman Mortality Database
The Human Mortality Database (HMD) is a joint initiative of the Department of Demographics at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany that provides detail ...
, which includes information on mortality and causes of mortality, but is restricted to data built from official records
References
External links
{{official website, www.who.int/gho/en/
World Health Organization
Scientific databases
Health informatics