WHO releases Health Inequality Data Repository

On April 20, 2023, WHO released the largest global collection of publicly available inequality data with the launch of the Health Inequality Data Repository.1WHOHealth Inequality Data Repository.https://www.who.int/data/inequality-monitor/health-inequality-data-repositoryDate: 2023Date accessed: April 20, 2023Google Scholar As members of the technical team developing the resource, we highlight its potential contribution to advancing health equity by creating opportunities for health inequality monitoring, including tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Health Inequality Data Repository contains about 11 million points of disaggregated data—that is, data broken down by characteristics such as sex, age, place of residence, disability, economic status, and education. The more than 2000 indicators in the repository were selected as part of a systematic scoping exercise.2Hosseinpoor AR Bergen N Kirkby K Schlotheuber A Antiporta DA Mac Feely S WHO's health inequality data repository.Bull World Health Organ. 2023; 101 (298A): 298Crossref PubMed Google Scholar They pertain to current health and development priorities including the SDGs; COVID-19; reproductive, maternal, and child health; immunisation; HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria; adult health; nutrition; health care; burden of disease; environmental health; and other health determinants. These data are a central requirement for monitoring inequalities between population groups, identifying situations of injustice, and informing the development of equity-sensitive policies and programmes. The global health community stands to benefit from the Health Inequality Data Repository. At a time when tackling inequalities and improving equity are cross-cutting objectives for health strategies and plans, the availability of disaggregated data is shockingly underwhelming. For instance, only 52 (54%) of the 97 eligible health-related SDG indicators (ie, indicators that can be disaggregated) in the UN Statistics SDG Indicators Database have disaggregated data. 170 (53%) of the 320 eligible indicator data that were published in the WHO Global Health Observatory are disaggregated. The available disaggregated data are most commonly broken down by sex, age, or place of residence—factors that, although important, do not provide insight into forms of inequality related to poverty, education, ethnicity, disability, or other sources of marginalisation. Further, extant disaggregated data remain under-realised. A study by WHO in 2020 found that 68 (51%) of 133 countries included disaggregated data in published national health statistics reports.3WHOSCORE for health data technical package: global report on health data systems and capacity, 2020. World Health Organization, Geneva2021Google Scholar The Health Inequality Data Repository aims to increase the accessibility of inequality data to broad audiences, including monitoring and evaluation officers, analysts, global health partners, researchers, and academics. It provides a common access point for disaggregated data from WHO as well as other major global data sources, including the UNICEF Data Warehouse, the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, UNAIDS, UNDP, the UN Statistics SDG Indicators Database, Eurostat, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Global Data Lab, the Global COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and others.2Hosseinpoor AR Bergen N Kirkby K Schlotheuber A Antiporta DA Mac Feely S WHO's health inequality data repository.Bull World Health Organ. 2023; 101 (298A): 298Crossref PubMed Google Scholar The Health Inequality Data Repository will be updated and expanded on an annual basis to reflect global availability of disaggregated data. To support the use of these data, the Health Inequality Data Repository has an interactive user interface (the Health Equity Assessment Toolkit4Kirkby K Schlotheuber A Vidal Fuertes C Ross Z Hosseinpoor AR Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT and HEAT Plus): exploring inequalities in the COVID-19 pandemic era.Int J Equity Health. 2022; 21: 172Crossref PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar), which facilitates data exploration, analysis, and visualisation. Concurrent efforts are under way to develop resources to support expanded and strengthened health inequality monitoring.5Hosseinpoor AR Bergen N Kirkby K Schlotheuber A Strengthening and expanding health inequality monitoring for the advancement of health equity: a review of WHO resources and contributions.Int J Equity Health. 2023; 22: 49Crossref PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar We declare no competing interests.