One of IHME’s main goals is to provide researchers and developing countries with tools to better monitor population health and identify ways to improve it. We do this in a variety of ways, including:
- Downloadable software that allows people to replicate our research methods.
- Survey instruments to better assess health priorities.
- Interactive data visualizations that bring our findings to life in a way that offers new insights.
- A catalog of health and demographic datasets from around the world and including IHME results – explore the GHDx.
Together, these tools help decision-makers harness the power of data to inform strategies for improving population health.
Data Collection Instruments
For many parts of the world, good data on health are not readily available. In some cases, the infrastructure and resources are not available to support a fully functioning health information system. In others, core systems exist but there is a need to augment existing data with new data collection. Surveys can be a critically important component of a health information system and play an important role in achieving an integrated surveillance system that brings together information from multiple sources to create as complete as possible picture of population health. In various research projects, IHME is creating and testing survey instruments.