Health statistics and health information systems

The goal of WHO's work in health statistics is to improve country, regional and global health information. This information is vital for public health decision making, health sector reviews, planning and resource allocation and programme monitoring and evaluation. WHO contributes to improved health information through its activities in the three following areas: the Global Health Observatory, the common gateway to the wealth of WHO data and statistics, analysis and reports on key health themes; standards, tools and methods for data collection, compilation, analysis, and dissemination and country measurement and evaluation, collaborating with countries on data collection, analysis and approaches to address priority data gaps and strengthen country health information systems.

The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health delivered its report with ten recommendations in September 2011. The multi-stakeholder workplan to implement the Commission's recommendations focuses on: (1) strengthening of country mechanisms and practices for better accountability for health with special attention for women and children in the 75 countries referred to in the Commission's report, and (2) the improvement of global accountability mechanisms and practices.

• WHO web pages on Accountability for Women's and Children's Health
• Country Accountability Framework (CAF) assessments and roadmaps

The Global Health Observatory is a single point of entry to WHO's data and analyses on health priorities, providing comparative health data and analysis on the heatlh situation, trends and determinants to inform global and country decision making.

Users can download data sets in various formats, display data for selected indicators, health topics, countries and regions, and download the customized tables in Excel format.

• Browse the Global Health Observatory

The Service Availability and Readiness Assessment (SARA) is a health facility assessment tool designed to assess and monitor the service availability and readiness of the health sector and to generate evidence to support the planning and managing of a health system. SARA is designed as a systematic survey to generate a set of tracer indicators of service availability and readiness. It has been developed by WHO in conjunction with global partners to fill critical data gaps in measuring and tracking progress in health systems strengthening.

• Read more about the SARA health facility assessement tool