CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

What We’re Learning: Global health experts need better data about what works.

For decades, the world largely ignored the health problems of developing countries. In the last 10 years, it has started paying more attention, and funding to research those problems has gone way up. That’s great news, but the field of global health is now growing much faster than its capacity to collect good data and measure the impact that interventions are having on people’s lives. The gap that’s opening up between what is being done and what is being measured raises a serious concern: Global health experts don’t have reliable ways to know what their priorities should be or whether their current approaches are having the desired effect.

To help start closing this gap, we have made a grant to the University of Washington to create the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

The IHME has four main goals. First, to gather better data. In many developing countries, the infrastructure for collecting key health data—things like censuses and birth and death registries—either doesn’t exist or isn’t reliable. Second, to use data to evaluate the effectiveness of particular health interventions. Third, to make sure the data and evaluations are disseminated to a broad audience of policymakers so they can make smart decisions. Fourth, to encourage advances in the field of health metrics by building up the science of collecting and working with data.

The IHME intends to be a resource for experts in the developing world. It is already offering a master’s degree and will soon offer a Ph.D., and it is recruiting students from developing countries for these programs. In addition, it is encouraging its faculty to work with collaborators from developing countries.

Getting better data—and improving the analysis of that data—is absolutely essential. For example, last year a new study that crunched child mortality data in a new way showed that while the trends are generally positive, child mortality is actually getting worse in certain countries. That is the kind of information that can lead to more effective, more targeted programs—and ultimately to better results.