August 13, 2012

International Health Resources

Organizations and Agencies; Publications and Databases; and Guides to International Health Resources (originally from University of California Berkeley Library).

Organizations and Agencies

American International Health Alliance (AIHA)
AIHA operates under a cooperative agreement with the Agency for International Development (USAID). AIHA establishes and manages partnerships between health care institutions in the United States and their counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union.
CDC--Global Health
"Through the Global Health Initiative (GHI), the United States will invest $63 billion over six years to help partner countries improve health outcomes through strengthened health systems – with a particular focus on improving the health of women, newborns and children through programs including infectious disease, nutrition, maternal and child health, and safe water." This website includes links to many of the CDC's international programs as well as a link to international health regulations and other resources.

Disease Control Priorities Project
"DCPP is an ongoing effort to assess disease control priorities and produce evidence-based analysis and resource materials to inform health policymaking in developing countries." Their site includes major publications such as Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries; you can also create custom books from chapters of available publications. Downloadable data tables and research reports are also available. The site's resources are searchable and browsable by region, country, disease or condition, and topic.

Family Health International
FHI conducts research in family planning and sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV/AIDS) and offers many full text materials online.

Global Environmental Facility
"An independent financial organization, the GEF provides grants to developing countries and countries with economies in transition for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants. " GEF's implementing agencies are the UN Development Programme; the UN Environment Programme; the World Bank; the UN Food and Agriculture Organization; the UN Industrial Development Organization; the African Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; the Inter-American Development Bank; and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. An online database of projects is available.

globalhealth.gov
This site functions as a portal for the U S Department of Health and Human Services Office of International and Refugee Health and describes DHHS projects and programs worldwide. It also has links to world health statistics, as well as OIRH publications.

Global Forum for Health Research
Only an estimated 10% of the $70 billion spent on health research and development annually is used for research into 90% of the world's health problems. The Global Forum's objective is to help correct this gap by focusing research efforts on diseases representing the heaviest burden on the world's health and facilitating collaboration between partners in both the public and private sectors. This is done by analysis of the burden of disease, cost-effectiveness analysis of investments in health research, and monitoring research flows in health research.

Health Canada
"Health Canada is the federal department responsible for helping the people of Canada maintain and improve their health."

Hesperian Foundation (Berkeley, CA)
"The Hesperian Foundation is a non-profit organization committed to improving the health of people in poor communities throughout the world by making health information accessible. We produce books and other educational resources for community-based health care."

International Center for Research on Women
"The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) works to make women in developing countries an integral part of alleviating global poverty. Our research evidence identifies women’s contributions as well as the obstacles that prevent them from being economically strong and able to fully participate in society. ICRW translates these insights into a path of action that honors women’s human rights, ensures gender equality and creates the conditions in which all women can thrive." The ICRW's publications library includes freely available reports, toolkits, policy briefs and position papers on topics such as child marriage, economic empowerment, food security, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, and trafficking, among many others.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
The OECD provides the governments of its 30 member nations a setting in which to discuss, develop and perfect economic and social policy. Numerous publications and statistics are available on their web site.
  • OECD Health Data
    Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students.
    OECD Health Data is a interactive database covering over 1,200 indicators and offering sophisticated query modules. Some time series go back as far as 1960. Main fields covered include: Health status, Health care utilisation, Health care resources, Expenditure on health, Health Care Financing, Social protection, Pharmaceutical market, Non-medical determinants of health, Demographic references, and Economic references.
  • SourceOECD
    Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students.
    SourceOECD provides access to books, papers, statistics, and periodicals produced by OECD since the early 1980s. It is searchable by subject, series, country, and more.
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
PAHO's "essential mission is to strengthen national and local health systems and improve the health of the peoples of the Americas, in collaboration with Ministries of Health, other government and international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, universities, social security agencies, community groups, and many others." The site has many books, periodicals, databases, technical documents and more.
Population Reference Bureau
PRB provides information on U.S. and international population trends and their implications.

Public Health InfoLinks--Public Health Sites by Country (Rollins School of Public Health)

Public Health InfoLinks--International Agencies (Rollins School of Public Health)

United Nations
» Official Web Site Locator for the United Nations System of Organizations
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
"USAID is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State. Our Work supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting:
  • economic growth, agriculture and trade;
  • global health; and,
  • democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance."
USAID's Global Health Website
USAID's global health projects focus areas include HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, maternal and child health, and population.

Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC)
DEC acquires USAID-funded publications for dissemination to the international development community. Online services include searchable database, document submission, e-mail subscription (for notification of new titles), and ordering documents and CD's. The document database is searchable by topic, country, author, title, and more. There are almost 120,000 records in the database, with over 14,000 available for free download.

World Bank
  • World Bank e-Library
    Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students. "The World Bank eLibrary provides access to a growing collection of more than 6,000 ebooks, journal articles, and working papers from the world’s most authoritative source on international development as they are published. eLibrary contains only the final, peer-reviewed versions of the Bank's formal publications. eLibrary is designed to meet the needs of the library, academic and research community."
  • Countries & Regions
    Projects, news, and basic data
  • HNP FLASH
    A monthly electronic publication, HNP FLASH covers issues on health, population, nutrition, and reproductive health.
  • Poverty
    "Resources and support for people working to understand and alleviate poverty." Includes several online publications, and a Poverty and Health page.
  • World Development Indicators Online
    This database, produced by the World Bank, is "the primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates." It provides access to over 1100 development indicators with time series for 209 countries and 18 country groups from 1960 to 2009. Data includes vital statistics, demographics, labor force, health expenditures, malnutrition, pollution, trade, consumption, GDP, GNP, investment activity, debt, and much more.
World Health Organization (WHO)

Global Health Atlas (World Health Organization)
"WHO's Global Health Atlas is bringing together for analysis and comparison standardized data and statistics for infectious diseases at country, regional, and global levels. The analysis and interpretation of data are further supported through information on demography, socioeconomic conditions, and environmental factors. Key components of the Global Health Atlas include:
  • Data Query – that allows users to browse, view, query, search the contents of the WHO's Communicable Disease global database and output data in reports, charts and maps.
  • Interactive Mapping – that provides a user-friendly mapping interface that allows users to select geographic areas of interest and create maps of diseases, the location of health facilities, schools, roads, geographic features.
  • Maps and Resources – that provides access to the public domain to static maps and related documents, publications and statistics on infectious diseases."
Regional Databases
Regional health and medical databases complement internationally known bibliographical indexes such as MEDLINE. There is a considerable amount of medical and health documentation from countries outside the major industrialized areas which is not included in MEDLINE. Includes:
» African Index Medicus
» Index Medicus for the Eastern Mediterranean Region
» Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information
» Index Medicus for the South-East Asian Region
» Western Pacific Region Index Medicus
  • Scaling up the Response to Infectious Diseases: A Way out of Poverty (January 2002)
    "Just a few conditions are responsible for a high proportion of the avoidable deaths in poor countries - and well-targeted measures, using existing technologies, could save around 8 million lives per year and generate economic benefits of more than $360 billion per year, by 2015­2020. This report outlines how increased investment in health can be well spent, stressing how interventions, health system strengthening and behaviour change together can help achieve these goals."
  • WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO)
    GHO provides access to statistical and epidemiological data available from the World Health Organization and elsewhere. The WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS) has been integrated into this new system.
  • WHO report on Global Surveillance of Epidemic-prone Infectious diseases (2000)
    Analysis and interpretation of data collected by WHO on the surveillance of infectious epidemic diseases, the strengths and weaknesses of the data, and how the data can be used and interpreted. Time series data for approximately half a century are reported for many of these diseases. Such data allow recent changes to be interpreted in a long-term perspective. Also, this volume uses a multiple disease approach, and examines not only the surveillance of nine different diseases, but also contrasts and compares their global surveillance systems.
  • The World Health Report
    The World Health Report is WHO's leading publication. Each year the report combines an expert assessment of global health, including statistics relating to all countries, with a focus on a specific subject. The main purpose of the report is to provide countries, donor agencies, international organizations and others with the information they need to help them make policy and funding decisions. Previous year's WHRs are also available online.

Publications and Databases

To search for journal articles on this topic, use Indexes and Databases. To locate journals, use the Melvyl catalog, or the UC-eLinks Electronic Journals Search.

Africa-Wide Information (16th century-present) 
Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students. A comprehensive multidisciplinary database covering journals, magazines, newspapers, broadcasts, books and more on all aspects of Africa including politics, history, economics, health, and natural sciences.

Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)
"CESSDA promotes the acquisition, archiving and distribution of electronic data for social science teaching and research in Europe. It encourages the exchange of data and technology and fosters the development of new organisations in sympathy with its aims." The web site provides access to many European data archives, as well as several from other parts of the world

Country Health Profiles (PAHO)
A short summary of General Situation and Trends, Specific Health Problems and Risks, and Health Services and Resources information is given for each country.

Country Profiles
From Eldis, an information service of the Institute of Development Studies, this site provides information and statistics on gender, environment, food security, health and population, education, and more on about 150 of the world's nations.

Country Reports and Country Profiles (Economist Intelligence Unit)
Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students. Country reports provide brief introductions to and forecasts of countries' political and economic scene. Country Profiles provide more detailed information on politics, resources and infrastructure, economic sectors, and more. These reports are updated at least annually, and nearly 200 countries are detailed. Commerce and financial reports are provided for some countries.

Country Studies/Area Handbooks (Library of Congress)
A series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the Department of the Army. Most books in the series deal with a particular country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. Most books contain some information on morbidity/mortality and health care delivery/family planning issues

Data Online for Population, Health and Nutrition (DOLPHN)
DOLHPN pulls together statistics on the health indicators of nations from various sources. This database includes country reports for over 60 countries. The database was created to help USAID health staff and AIM Project data analysts to meet indicator-reporting needs.

Demographic and Health Surveys (MEASURE DHS+)
"MEASURE DHS+ assists developing countries worldwide in the collection and use of data to monitor and evaluate population, health, and nutrition programs. Demographic and health surveys provide information on family planning, maternal and child health, child survival, HIV/AIDS/sexually transmitted infections, and reproductive health." Data is available using the STATcompiler, an "online database tool that allows users to select numerous countries and hundreds of indicators to create customized tables that serve their specific data needs." In addition, DHS publications are available online, as are datasets (registration required for datasets access, but the data is available at no cost). Note: This site cannot be accessed using Netscape 4.x.

EcoAméricas
Note: Access limited to UCB faculty, staff, and students. "EcoAméricas covers development and the environment in Latin America for an international audience of businesses, NGOs and public agencies. Every month, EcoAméricas draws on a network of experienced correspondents in the region to produce a concise, 12-page report. All articles include detailed contact and resource information."

Environmental Performance Index 2010
"The 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) ranks 163 countries on 25 performance indicators tracked across ten policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality. These indicators provide a gauge at a national government scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals." By clicking on Files at the top of the page, you can get to the main report, country profiles, the EPI data in an Excel spreadsheet, and more. The site also includes a map and metrics.

Global Health
Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students. Global Health indexes journals, books, reports, conference proceedings, patents, theses, and electronic only publications. Topics include environmental and occupational health, food safety and hygiene, infectious diseases, medical microbiology, nutrition, public health, toxicology, zoonoses, and more. Limited free full text is available for some hard-to-find journal articles, conference proceedings, reports, and research articles from smaller, society and non-English publishers. Publication dates covered: 1912 - present.
» Global Health Quick Guide

Globalhealthfacts.org
Global data on HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and more. "GlobalHealthFacts.org, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides free, up-to-date and easy-to-access data by country on HIVAIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other key health and socio-economic indicators. The data are displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and can be downloaded for custom analyses." This site includes global data on a variety of diseases, programs, funding and financing, demography, population and the health workforce, among other data. An option for raw data downloads is available under the Tools tab.

Handbook of Latin American Studies
Citations in the area of Latin American studies from journals, books, and conferences. Coverage includes 1935 to the present.

HealthMap: Global Disease Alert Map
HealthMap allows users to view current infectious diseases with an interactive mapping tool. The data is aggregated by disease and results can be displayed by either disease or country and provides easy access to the original alert. This site integrates outbreak data from a variety of sources, ranging from news sources such as Google News to validated official alerts such as World Health Organization.

HNPFLASH (World Bank)
A free monthly electronic newsletter, HNPFLASH covers issues on population, health, nutrition, and reproductive health.

InfoNation (United Nations Statistics Division)
InfoNation is an easy-to-use database that allows you to view and compare the most up-to-date statistical data for the Member States of the United Nations. The database contains four broad categories of data: geography (i.e. Urban Population), economy (i.e. GDP), population (i.e. infant mortality and total fertility rate), and social indicators (i.e. Life Expectancy and Homicides).

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (1951-present)
b>Note: Access limited to UC faculty, staff, and students. IBSS provides citations from journals, books, book reviews, and book chapters in the fields of economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. Records come from more than 100 countries and languages. Most titles not in English are provided with an English title translation. About 2 million records are in this database.

International Data Base (U.S. Census Bureau. International Programs Center)
IDB contains statistical information on the demographic and socio-economic conditions for 227 countries and areas of the world. It combines data from country sources (especially censuses and surveys) with IPC's estimates and projections to provide information dating back as far as 1950 and as far ahead as 2050. Some types of data available include: population by age and sex, vital rates, infant mortality, life tables, and family planning.

Latin American Knowledge Harvester
This database hosted by the University of New Mexico indexes abstracts of articles, books, and book chapters about or from Latin America that deal with social medicine in Latin America. The materials indexed here look at the social, economic, and cultural determinants of health, and the organized responses to confront the problems. These citations and abstracts are generally available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Kenya Open Data
"The goal of [Kenya Open Data] is to make core government development, demographic, statistical and expenditure data available in a useful digital format for researchers, policymakers, ICT developers and the general public." You'll find the 2009 census data, national budget data, national and county public expenditure data, and information on health care and school facilities here. Includes maps, county factsheets, dynamic charts and tables, and raw data.

National Intelligence Council (CIA) publications
The NIC is a "center for US Goverenment mid-term and long-term strategic thinking." Their reports "focus on new and emerging national security issues and transnational threats as described in Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project" (2000). Topics include HIV/AIDS, global humanitarian emergencies, global migration, infectious diseases, and environmental problems.

POPLINE (1970-present)
Maintained by the Population Information Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and funded primarily by the United States Agency for International Development, POPLINE (POPulation information onLINE) provides citations with abstracts of the worldwide literature on population, family planning, and related health issues. POPLINE references published and unpublished literature.

Population Index On The Web (1986-2000)
Published by the Office of Population Research of Princeton University, Population Index references international population literature. It provides access to books, journal articles, working papers, and other types of population literature.

World Factbook
Maps and information on the geography, people, economy, etc. of every country in the world. Published annually by the CIA.

The World's Youth 2000
This list of reports, published by the Population Reference Bureau, provides worldwide regional and national data on population, education, and health, with a special focus on sexual and reproductive health.

Guides

European Nations Statistical Agencies
From the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Statistical Division, this site provides links to statistical agencies in Europe and elsewhere.

Foreign Government Data Sources (from the University of Michigan Documents Center)
Includes both comprehensive sources, as well as individual countries' statistical agencies.

Resources on African Health and Diseases
This site is maintained by the African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania and is a guide to organizations and resources on various health topics, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and health research and development. It also includes relevant information on jobs, grants, news and discussion lists.

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