INFORM workshop Traiing Materials
Geographically Based Health Resources
Geographically Based Health Resources
Sometimes what you need is information about a particular country or region of the
world, including public health policies, descriptions of health care systems, and
statistics on specific diseases. The easiest way to find such information is to find
resources that are geographically based. The pages that follow give some examples
of general geographical resources for countries and regions, as well as resources that
provide information about specific topics (health, diseases, humanitarian crises, etc.)
from a geographical perspective.
General resources
Regional gateways
There are many gateways providing collections of links to relevant Web sites on
specific regions and the countries in those regions. You can use them to find
different kinds of information, including historical, political, economic, social, and
health and can access maps, photographs, news, and much more.
Start by going to dir.yahoo.com/ or www.google.com/dirhp (the Yahoo and Google
directories. Click on ‘Regional’, then ‘Regions’, then the specific region of interest,
then regional guides.
For Africa, be sure and try these gateways:
www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/ (Stanford’s Africa South of the Sahara
www.africa.upenn.edu (African Studies Center at University of Pennsylvania)
www.afrika.no/index/index.html (Norwegian Council for Africa)
Other on-line routes
To find information about specific countries, you can also begin at the Yahoo or
Google directory, click on ‘Regional’, and then click through until you reach a
particular country.
1
INFORM workshop Traiing Materials
Geographically Based Health Resources
Yet another approach, which can yield very good results, is to start at the Yahoo
directory, click on ‘Social Science’ and then on ‘Areas Studies’. In the Google
directory, the route is ‘Society’, then ‘Social Sciences’, then ‘Area Studies’. The
materials included here are often more academic in nature than those found in the
regional menu.
Other possibilities: Go to Yahoo’s or Google’s directory and find ‘Reference’. In the
next menu level, select ‘Encyclopaedia’, then a specific one, and then do a search for
your country. Alternatively, go to the Yahoo directory, click on ‘Reference’, then on
‘Country Profiles’ and select among the available reference materials.
Sites on international affairs in general can also be good gateways to information
about countries. Try, for example, going to www.reliefweb.int and clicking on the
region you are interested in, and then the country. When you get to the page for the
country of choice, look at the column to the left, which provides a wealth of
background information resources on the country.
Printed reference materials
Some of the very best materials on countries and regions are in paper form rather
than on-line. These include the yearbooks published by Europa Publications on
different world regions (see the unit on Tertiary and Reference Resources). These
are very expensive, so they are not in many libraries. However, it is worth asking!
Maps and news
If you are after a specific type of country information, such as a map, you may also
try a different strategy. You can begin at the Yahoo or Google directory, but instead
of going to country resources, try clicking on ‘Reference’ and then ‘Maps’.
Likewise, to get into news sources, such as newspapers, go to ‘News and Media’ and
then ‘By Region’. Or, alternatively, try ‘News and Media’, then ‘Newspapers’, and
then ‘Region’. You don’t always get the same results, so if you don’t find what you
want through one route, try another! A wonderful gateway for newspapers and other
news media around the world is www.abyznewslinks.com/. The listings here are
generally much more comprehensive than those available through Yahoo or Google.
Resources on specific health-related topics
Humanitarian assistance information
By far the best source of geographically based information relevant to humanitarian
assistance is Relief Web at www.reliefweb.int, which was mentioned above. This
site, which is maintained by the United Nations Office for Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, is a major gateway providing links with individual agencies
and organizations, news updates, archives of research papers, and much more.
2
INFORM workshop Traiing Materials
Geographically Based Health Resources
To find country-based information on humanitarian crises, just click on the regional
links in the middle column and then select the country of interest. The page will be
full of links to press releases and reports from various organizations and agencies
regarding wars, disaster, and humanitarian crises in that country.
Refugees and IDP information
Information about refugee conditions in different countries can be obtained on-line at
the US Committee for Refugees at www.refugees.org/. Select the country of interest
from the menu to the right.
Similarly, a global overview and country-specific data on internally displaced
persons can be obtained at the IDP Project at www.idpproject.org/.
Women and children
The latest United Nations report on the state of women in different regions was The
World’s Women 2000: Trends and Statistics. Much of the text from the report plus
the statistical tables can be reached on-line through the UN Statistic Division at
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/indwm/wwpub.htm.
For country-based information about children, go to Unicef at www.unicef.org and
click on ‘country info’. A great deal of country-based statistical information can also
be found in the State of the World’s Children reports published by Unicef. They can
be accessed free of charge on-line. At the home page, scroll down to the bottom and
click on ‘publications’, then search by title. Each annual report focuses on a specific
topic related to the well being of children, but there are also statistical tables showing
many child-related indicators by country.
Health information
The best regional gateways on health have been assembled in a super gateway at
INASP’s Health Links at www.inasp.info/health/links/contents.shtml.
For health information by country, WHO is a good starting point. Go to
www.who.int and click on ‘countries’ from the menu, then select from the
alphabetical list.
Another possible source of country health information is the regional offices of
WHO. Start at the same address but click on ‘WHO sites’ from the menu at the left,
then scroll down to ‘Regional Offices’ in the alphabetic list and select the appropriate
one. WHO also provides statistical health information by country. Start at the WHO
home page, click on ‘Research tools’ and then scroll down the page to see what’s
available. Be sure to check out WHOSIS and the items listed under it, as well as the
many resources under ‘Geographical information tools’, including the Global Atlas
of Infectious Disease.
3
INFORM workshop Traiing Materials
Geographically Based Health Resources
In addition, WHO provides external links to other country- and region-based health
information. The link set can be difficult to find if you just click through the
WHOSIS menu, and you may get a message saying it is not available. If so, try
http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm?path=whosis,links&language=english.
The World Health Chart, which has been developed by WHO and various Swedish
institutions, shows changes in international health over time, including relative health
status of different world regions. It can be accessed at www.whc.ki.se/index.php.
For detailed statistical information about health and other aspects of social
development, the best source is the United Nations Statistics Division at
http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/. As the address indicates, much of the
information available here has to do with the 48 indicators, including ones related to
health, that have been selected to measure development progress. The site also
provides international statistics links, as well as links to national statistics agencies.
Yet another international health statistics gateway is the Office of Global Health
Affairs within the US Department of Health and Human Services. It can be reached
at www.globalhealth.gov/. The site provides country-based health information and
statistics, links to world health statistics resources, and much more.
Martha J Garrett
INFORM
Faculty of Medicine, Uppsala University
Uppsala, Sweden
June 2005
4