Data sources for Core Indicators
For selected indicators, data providers are national health authorities, specifically national technical programs, and National Statistical Offices. These data are channeled through PAHO technical programs that receive, review, and validate data before dissemination.
Other data providers include the Population Division of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, as well as U.N. agencies such as UNICEF, UNESCO, and the World Bank. Among these, WHO is a major source, hosting the Global Health Observatory and the Global Health Expenditure Database. These international data sources were selected to ensure comparability across countries; as a result, the figures presented may differ from national statistics.
Comparability and data quality
Data was reviewed for completeness and consistency, but users should interpret data with caution as definitions, estimation methodology and coverage (public/private) may differ across countries.
To facilitate understanding of data comparability, we use the following classification (1) for the presentation of indicators from national health authorities:
- crude: based directly on primary data collection without adjustment;
- corrected: where known biases (such as under-registration, misclassification, or non-representativeness) are adjusted for;
- predicted: generated from mathematical models when empirical or corrected data are unavailable.
For vital statistics indicators, data may have one or more of the following limitations for international comparability: preliminary data, coverage of maternal deaths, infant deaths, neonatal deaths and live births; differences in the maternal death definition; different denominators, and the analysis of only confirmed maternal deaths.
We continue to collect core indicators from Bonaire, San Eustatius, and Saba (BES). In this dataset, BES data is not included.
(1) Towards good practice for health statistics: lessons from the Millennium Development Goal health indicators. Lancet 2007; 369:862-73.