WHO and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding defining areas where they will work together to improve the quality and use of global health estimates to measure the world’s health challenges.
WHO welcomes this agreement that aims to increase transparency, accessibility and consistency of health estimates to help policymakers make informed decisions about what public health programmes should be prioritized and the research that is needed.
“Accurate health statistics are the foundation of a good health system, ” says Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation at WHO.
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“当我们知道人们因何患病和为何死亡时，我们就知道将资源投向何处。”
“When we know what makes people ill and why they die, we know where to put resources.”
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然而在今天，每年针对每个人群可获得的完整卫生数据极少。
Today, however, complete health data are rarely available for every population and year.
Even when they are available, the data may not be directly comparable year-on-year because they come from different sources such as research projects, household surveys and hospital records, and the findings may vary significantly.
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当遇到缺失或没有可用数据时，就要利用统计模型进行估计，这往往会导致十分不同的结果。
Where gaps in, or no, data exist, statistical models are used to make estimates, often leading to very different results.
In this regard, collaboration among WHO, other United Nations agencies and academic institutions such as IHME is essential to improve global health estimates.