WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION REMODELS GLOBAL INFOBASEDo you want to know what percentage of females in the United States of America are obese or overweight? What percentage of Indian men use tobacco? What percentage of people in Lesotho have diabetes? The answers to those questions, and many others, are just a few mouse clicks away on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global InfoBase at http://www.who.int/infobase. The Global InfoBase is a data warehouse where information about risk factors for cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases is collected, stored and displayed. It has many different uses and types of users but is especially valuable to anyone who wants to understand the present or future burden of cardiovascular disease and the other chronic diseases. It contains nearly 500,000 pieces of information from more than 9,000 sources. More viewer-friendly, easily to navigateThe Global InfoBase began in 2001 as part of WHO's surveillance of risk factors for chronic, noncommunicable diseases. Before that, the WHO made data available about the chronic diseases and their risk factors but stored it in scattered locations. “A lot of the information definitely existed, but there was no central data warehouse for it,” Dr Kathleen Strong explained. In June 2007, the World Health Organization launched a remodelled version of the Global InfoBase that is more viewer-friendly, easier to navigate and makes country data more accessible, according to Dr Strong, Team Leader. The World Heart Federation works with the Global InfoBase to help ensure that the data serves the needs of its members and of the cardiovascular disease community at large. Examples of other recent users were a health insurer in the United States of America, wanting data about obesity and overweight in that country, and an Indian Ministry of Health Official who wanted to compare Indian and Nigerian tobacco-use data, Dr Strong said. Design modelled on chronic diseases reportThe style and layout of the Global InfoBase are based on those of WHO’s 2005 report “Preventing Chronic Diseases: a vital investment”, which revealed that chronic diseases cause 60% of all deaths worldwide and kill over 35 million people a year. That was no accident, Dr Strong says. The idea was to provide a consistent look and feel across both mediums – electronic and print. She noted that the InfoBase provides an evidence base for World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan’s decision to make the fight against chronic disease a higher priority. “It certainly provides the information for the action,” Dr Strong said. Quality of data a paramount priorityDr Strong and her colleagues maintain a rigorous commitment to quality. All data from countries, whether from published government reports, peer-reviewed journals or unpublished articles, are displayed on the system after checks for correct data entry and internal consistency. Data are displayed with information about their source and collection methodology to allow users full access to the information they will need to interpret the data further. The Global InfoBase was the basis for the Surveillance of Chronic Disease Risk Factors (SuRF) reports that WHO released in 2003 and 2005 and is planning to release in 2007. Both the SuRF 1 and SuRF 2 reports provided country-level data about chronic disease risk factors. Looking to improve still furtherAs satisfied as Dr Strong is with the recent improvements to the Global InfoBase, she wants to make it better. Towards that end, she recently assigned an intern to work with the World Heart Federation on designing a module about women’s health. She hopes that the Global InfoBase will eventually cover more health topics and contain more information about WHO's 193 Member States’ plans to implement the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. | |||||||
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