Data Sources (under construction)

Aggregations of health data collected by U.S. federal agencies.

Population Reference Bureau (PRB)
www.prb.org

World data sheet and country-specific demographic data.

U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base (IDB)
www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html

The International Data Base (IDB) is a computerized source of demographic and socio-economic statistics for 227 countries and areas of the world. The IDB was created in the Census Bureau's International Programs Center in response to the information requirements of IPC staff to meet the needs of organizations that sponsor IPC's research efforts. The IDB provides quick access to specialized information, with emphasis on demographic measures, for individual countries or selected groups of countries.

The IDB combines data from country sources (especially censuses and surveys) with IPC's estimates and projections to provide information dating back as far as 1950 and as far ahead as 2050. Because the IDB is maintained at IPC as a research tool in response to sponsor requirements, the amount of information available for each country may vary. As funding and research activity permit, IPC will update and expand the coverage.

The major types of data available in the IDB include:

• Population by age and sex
• Vital rates, infant mortality, and life tables
• Fertility and child survivorship
• Migration
• Marital Status
• Family planning
• Ethnicity, religion, and language
• Literacy
• Labor force, employment, and income
• Households

World Health Organization (WHO)
www.who.int/en   en español

The WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) at www.who.int/whosis/#topics describes and provides access to statistical and epidemiological data and information available from the World Health Organization and elsewhere in electronic or other forms. Includes "Health-for-All Global Indicators" and "European Health-for-All." A major WHO unit, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (www-dep.iarc.fr/dephome.htm), is the best source for Global cancer data
(www-dep.iarc.fr/dataava/infodata.htm)

Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
www.paho.org (españól/English)

PAHO has a bilingual web site with health data for the Americas, information about its publications, and an on-line version of the Epidemiological Bulletin

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
www.cdc.gov   CDC en español

Public health data sets to search, including mortality, SEER, and vital statistics data; fFull text articles from the MMWR, Emerging Infectious Diseases, and a new electronic journal on chronic diseases.

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
www.cdc.gov/nchs

This CDC agency is the primary federal organization responsible for the collection, analyses, and dissemination of health statistics. Users can browse the publications and statistical tables, download selected public-use data files, conduct on-line database queries and searches, track progress toward Healthy People 2000 Objectives, or access FASTATS from A-Z. NCHS public-use datasets are available from the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at UNC-CH and other depositories.