How the GHDx supports the IHME mission
The GHDx directly supports IHME’s mission to improve the health of the world’s populations by providing the best information on population health. It was created as a dedicated place for anyone interested in global health and demography to quickly find and share information about data along with actual datasets.
Encouraging the use of data for global health and demography starts with providing a comprehensive overview of what relevant data exist. Today, researchers, governmental organizations, and other data owners sometimes provide access to their data on their own websites. Some provide their data to social science data archives and research archives. And in many instances, data are not shared at all. The GHDx is a place where information about data from those different places and providers is brought together, discussed, and featured in the context of health and demographic research. In addition, the GHDx raises awareness about different groups collecting data worldwide and provides standardized citations to encourage appropriate acknowledgment of data owners’ contributions.
Research on the entries in the GHDx has been going on for several years. We hope to further accelerate the expansion with community support for research and validation of dataset metadata.
This is the second major version of the GHDx, using Drupal 7 open source content management system and Apache SOLR for search.