In addition to its core research, IHME leads a number of special research projects focusing on the Global Burden of Disease, health resource allocation, malaria control, and population health measurement and evaluation. IHME is collaborating with hundreds of public health experts and researchers around the world on these projects.

COVID-19 resources

IHME’s COVID-19 projections were developed in response to requests from the University of Washington School of Medicine and other US hospital systems and state governments working to determine when COVID-19 would overwhelm their ability to care for patients. 

Disease Control Priorities Network (DCPN)

The goal of DCPN is to improve how health resources are allocated in countries by producing estimates of the costs and cost effectiveness of interventions and health service delivery platforms.

Disease Expenditure (DEX)

Surprisingly little is known about how resources are spent on US health care. Most government and academic research focuses on a single payer, age group, or set of health conditions. Reconciling how health care spending varies across health condition, age and sex group, type of care, and time can help health system researchers and policymakers identify the drivers of spending increases. Health burden can only be properly addressed if resources, technology, and innovation are allocated with an in-depth understanding of the current health spending landscape.

Future Health Scenarios

IHME’s Future Health Scenarios research examines a wide range of potential health outcomes, including life expectancy, causes of death, and alternative landscapes for health trends. Past work on forecasting has provided an incomplete view of these landscapes, highlighting the need for a more robust model of study from which to determine policy options and ways to improve health systems. 

Global Burden of Disease (GBD)

GBD is the most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. It is the product of a global research collaborative and quantifies the impact of hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in countries around the world.

Global Research on AntiMicrobial resistance (GRAM) Project

GRAM is the flagship project of the University of Oxford Big Data Institute–IHME Strategic Partnership. GRAM was launched with support from the United Kingdom Department of Health’s Fleming Fund, the Wellcome Trust, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

HealthRise Evaluation

HealthRise is a five-year global program funded by the Medtronic Foundation, designed to improve access to chronic care for individuals in underserved communities suffering from hypertension and diabetes. IHME partnered with the Medtronic Foundation to serve as the independent evaluator for the program.

Local Burden of Disease

The Local Burden of Disease project at IHME aims to produce estimates of health outcomes and related measures that cover entire continents, but to do so at a very fine, local resolution.

Malaria Control and Elimination

Researchers at IHME are working with partners across the world to support malaria control and elimination, generating insights into the epidemiology and burden of malaria, and developing models of malaria transmission to guide strategic planning.

Prospective Country Evaluation (PCE)

The Prospective Country Evaluation (PCE) is an independent evaluation of the Global Fund commissioned by the Global Fund’s Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG). The PCE is designed to evaluate how Global Fund policies and processes play out in country in real time and to provide high quality, actionable, timely information to national program implementers and Global Fund policymakers. 

Salud Mesoamérica Initiative (SMI)

IHME works closely with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to collect data and conduct analysis to evaluate the impact of the Salud Mesoamérica Initiative. This results-based aid initiative mechanism focuses on reducing inequalities in maternal and child health across Mesoamerica.

The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative

A new state-by-state health analysis in India finds that over two decades heart- and lung-related conditions, as well as other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), have surpassed infectious diseases, such as diarrhea and tuberculosis, as the nation’s leading killers. The extent of this difference, however, varies significantly among the nation’s 29 states and seven union territories.

The Murray-Lopez Award

The primary aim of the award is to support emerging global health researchers to carry out innovative research to improve the measurement and knowledge about burden of disease in populations. 

Tobacco Surveillance Project

Through this project, IHME aims to advance the measurement of tobacco use, exposure, and attitudes by testing and comparing components of a potential multi-modal tobacco surveillance framework in sub-Saharan Africa.

Under-5 child health and mortality statistics in Yucatán, Mexico

The Under-5 child health and mortality statistics project is a collaboration between IHME and the Regional Research Center “Dr. Hideyo Noguchi” at the Autonomous University of Yucatán (UADY) funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation aimed at improving the understanding and functioning of mortality statistics systems and developing preventive strategies to improve the health of children under the age of 5 in Yucatán, Mexico.

University of Washington Center for Health Trends and Forecasts

The University of Washington Center for Health Trends and Forecasts, housed at IHME, joins 11 other National Institute on Aging (NIA) Demography Centers at leading universities and policy organizations around the United States. The NIA established these Centers to foster research in demography, economics, and epidemiology of aging and to promote the use of important datasets in the field.

US Counties Drivers of Health Study

The US Counties Drivers of Health Study aims to measure health performance across counties in the United States and increase our understanding of what drives these outcomes within 24 counties. This work encompasses two separate research components, the Women’s Life Expectancy Study and the County Health Status Study.

Verbal Autopsy (VA)

Verbal autopsy (VA) is a method of determining individuals’ causes of death and cause-specific mortality fractions in populations without a complete vital registration system. Verbal autopsies consist of a trained interviewer using a questionnaire to collect information about the signs, symptoms, and demographic characteristics of a recently deceased person from an individual familiar with the deceased.

Completed Projects

Assessment of Global Tobacco Control Priorities

IHME researchers are evaluating how different combinations of tobacco control policies and intervention packages result in reduced tobacco use and improved health outcomes throughout the world. 

Better data for better health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Ministry of Health (MOH) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and IHME are partnering to develop a world-class integrated surveillance and burden of disease monitoring system.

Gavi Full Country Evaluations

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that funds and improves access to vaccination in the world’s poorest countries. Gavi selected IHME to lead a prospective evaluation of its immunization programs in Bangladesh, India, Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia.

Improving Methods to Measure Comparable Mortality by Cause

To provide critical information for planning government facilities, policies, and interventions, IHME is working with collaborators in four countries to improve the understanding of leading causes of death in areas with poor or nonexistent vital registration systems.

Malaria Control Policy Assessment (MCPA)

IHME is evaluating the contribution of malaria control interventions to the reductions in under-5 mortality in Zambia and Uganda by producing and analyzing subnational estimates of intervention coverage.

Monitoring Disparities in Chronic Conditions Study: The MDCC Study

This project explores disparities in chronic disease among US communities by designing a cost-effective and easily scalable data collection system to track such diseases and their accompanying risk factors using multiple data sources.

Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC)

IHME, working in close collaboration with research organizations in four countries, has developed methods to measure mortality, causes of death, and incidence of major illnesses where data are incomplete.

Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) Mexico Study

The goal of the PHMRC Mexico Study was to offer better instruments and methods to countries for measuring population health where cause of death coding and information on disease prevalence is incomplete or inadequate. As part of the study, IHME pioneered new ways to collect cause of death information through verbal autopsies.

Quantitative analysis of feasibility of achieving zero preventable child deaths

In support of USAID’s strategic plan in reducing child mortality with a view to achieving zero preventable child deaths, IHME conducted quantitative analyses.