GHDx Blog
Today the GHDx has several new features: We are simplifying the GHDx and making it easier to use, and at the same time, allowing you to interact more with the GHDx. As of today, you no longer need to register to download data, and you can add comments to datasets.
We decided to eliminate the registration process to reflect our stance that data should be as open as possible. All news about GHDx data will be announced via Twitter, and anything that requires a longer message will have an announcement such as this one. If you previously registered, we have deleted your account information permanently from our records. If you are interested in all IHME news, please subscribe to the IHME mailing list.
We've also enabled comments on all datasets. To enter a comment, click post a comment in the top right. Complete a simple form and save. Comments...
To provide more regular updates, albeit in a simplified form, we are moving from hosting a blog to showing our tweets on the GHDx home page. If you aren't a Twitter user, you can easily see interesting updates from the world of health data in the same place as our previous blog posts. If you are on Twitter, follow us at @IHME_UW. Our data tweets are tagged with #GHDxData.
Moving to Twitter will help us provide a more timely and steady stream of information about the data we see, along with interesting data news. If you are a data aficionado like us, we hope this change will prove to be helpful to your ongoing data quests.
-the GHDx team
The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is the principal source of information on the health of the civilian, non-institutionalized population of the United States and is one of the major data collection programs of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A cross-sectional household interview survey, the NHIS has collected data on a broad scope of health and demographic topics since 1957.
The NHIS has undergone regular changes since its inception about every 10 to 15 years. The sampling plan of the NHIS is redesigned after every decennial census. The current format of the survey questionnaires consists of four major components referred to as the “Core”: Household, Family, Sample Adult, and Sample Child. The NHIS often utilizes supplement sections to collect data on special topics (e.g. preventative care, pregnancy, health...
Household Income and Expenditure Surveys (HIES), also commonly known as Household Budget Surveys (HBS) or Living Condition Surveys, collect data on the flow of monetary and non-monetary resources of households and individuals. These surveys are usually nationally representative, are conducted on a regular basis, and frequently contain a panel sample. The core of HIES is a detailed accounting of expenditures on food, goods and services, utilities, health care, and education, often captured through weekly or monthly diaries kept by participants. To provide a complete picture of a household’s financial status, in-depth information is also collected on employment and other economic activities, all forms of income, and financial behavior such as loans, debt, and savings. In addition to these economic subjects, HIES can contain modules on education, health, fertility, healthcare access and use, ownership of assets, and housing conditions.
Due to this diverse coverage,...
Thanksgiving in the United States is tomorrow, and as we here at IHME prepare for our yearly turkey feasts, and anticipate the December holiday feasts to come, we have a few thoughts on the proverbial holiday weight gain.
Looking for data on weight? Many surveys include anthropometric measurements, such as many of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) but self-reported weight in surveys such as BRFSS in the United States may be useful if you can adjust for bias. You might consider looking at articles on that bias, such as "Accuracy and usefulness of BMI measures based on self-reported weight and height; findings from the NHANES & NHIS 2001-2006," (Stommel M and Schoenborn CA. BMC Public Health. 2009 Nov 19; 9:421).
Today marks the 44th anniversary of the death of Casimir Funk, the scientist who discovered vitamins in 1912. Casimir, originally from Poland, discovered vitamins while investigating the cause of a condition called ‘beri-beri’ at the Lister Institute in London. ‘Beri-beri’ was known to affect those populations who ate white rice (milled rice), but not those who ate brown rice (unmilled rice). Casimir discovered that brown rice contained a substance that was removed as it was processed into white rice. He named this substance “vitamin B1.”
In honor of Casimir Funk, we wanted to highlight the large number of datasets catalogued in the GHDx that contain data on vitamins. First, a number of datasets from the Multiple Indicator...
Today marks the 36th Great American Smokeout, an initiative started by the American Cancer Society in 1977. Celebrated on the third Thursday in November, it is meant to encourage people to quit smoking on that day, quit smoking for 24 hours, or make plans to quit smoking. Not to be confused with World No Tobacco Day, started by the member countries of the WHO in 1987, its website provides a number of guidelines and tools to help smokers quit their unhealthy habit.
And it’s a very worthy cause. The WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, published this year, states that tobacco kills nearly 6 million people and causes hundreds of billions of dollars of economic damage worldwide each year. The underlying data for the report can be downloaded from the report website. If you are interested in more...
Tomorrow is Veterans Day in the United States, a day when the country honors the service of military veterans. Celebrated in other parts of the world as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, the holiday was originally established to commemorate the Armistice of World War I. For researchers interested in data on armed conflict, here are some resources worth checking out:
- For data on armed conflict, researchers can check out the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, a conflict-year dataset with information on armed conflict between 1946-2010.
- The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project from PRIO provides data and visualization tools for reported conflict events in 50 countries in the developing world.
- The UCDP also offers a visual encyclopedia of conflicts...
Today marks the anniversary of Cambodian independence from France, won in 1953. If you are looking for Cambodian demographic and health data, many datasets are publicly available starting from the 90s. The National Institute of Statistics of Cambodia through its data catalog makes the socio-economic survey available for purchase back to 1993. The Ministry of Health provides the annual health statistics yearbook from 2002-2010 for download. IPUMS International has microdata samples for the 1998 and 2008 censuses. For multinational series, in 2003 there was a Global Youth Tobacco Survey, and in 2008, a facility survey by the Global Fund. There were also four Demographic and Health Surveys, with the most recent one for 2010-2011 just released and available from...
As you know, the GHDx hosts the microdata for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Reproductive Health Survey series. We just added new reports for Jamaica 1997, 2002-2003 and 2008-2009, Romania 1993, and Belize 1999, ready for you to download. You will find more background on the series pages for the RHS and its sister series, the Young Adult Reproductive Health Survey series. These pages also show the complete list of surveys in these series.
