WHO releases its Health Inequality Data Repository

On April 20, the World Health Organization launches the Health Inequality Data Repository (HIDR), the most complete worldwide collection of publicly available disaggregated data and information on population health and its determinants.

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On April 20, the World Health Organization launches the Health Inequality Data Repository (HIDR), the most complete worldwide collection of publicly available disaggregated data and information on population health and its determinants. The repository allows for the tracking of health inequities across population groups and over time by segmenting data based on group characteristics such as education level and ethnicity. HIDR contains almost 11 million data points from 59 datasets from more than 15 sources.

However, disaggregated data for many health indicators are still unavailable, and where they are available, they are usually broken down simply by sex and, to a lesser extent, by age and location of residence. Despite its limitations, the existing disaggregated data demonstrate significant disparity trends. In releasing the HIDR, the WHO urges nations to implement routine health inequality monitoring, make disaggregated data publicly available, enhance data collection, and increase capacity for analysis and reporting. The Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) software can be used to explore all of the HIDR data.