Need more data?
Not finding what you need? Check out our other guides for even more data resources:
Health and Country Search Tips
When searching for any type of data, consider what level of detail you need to answer your question. Do you need statistics (summarized data), or do you need a dataset (the raw numbers used in analysis)? This can inform where you start your search. Overview information and statistics can often be found in journal articles, books, government websites, or reports from government or nonprofit organizations. Public datasets are likely to be found in data portals or data repositories, which can be hosted by governments, academic institutions, or nonprofits.
Government websites can be a good place to start looking for health and country information. But if you don't speak the same language as your chosen country, you can often find information from international organizations (like the UN, the OECD, or the World Health Organization).
Country Information and Data
Background Information and Statistics
- Country Statistical YearbooksStatistical yearbooks or similar collections (census, "facts and figures," etc.) for 154 countries.
- CIA World FactbookProfiles of all of the countries of the world, including history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.
- Europa World PlusEconomic, political, historical, and geographic profiles of 250+ countries and global regions beyond Europe.
- OECD iLibraryOECD iLibrary provides online access to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) resources, covering trade, environment, agriculture, technololgy, economic development, and more. The books, reports, working papers and periodicals are full-text and the databases have extensive statistical information.
- OECD- Country Statistical ProfilesThe key tables by country statistical profiles include a wide range of indicators on economy, education, energy, environment, foreign aid, health, information and communication, labour, migration, R&D, trade and society. Historical data refer to the latest eight time periods.
Links to interactive databases. - Global Edge Country Profiles and DataStatistical data for nearly every country around the world. In addition to statistics, historical, economic, and political conditions are available.
- Data PlanetProvides access to statistical data produced by U.S. Federal agencies, States, private organizations, and major intergovernmental organizations. There are up to 2 billion charts, maps, views, rankings, time series and tables available for use in the Data-Planet repository.
- Major Episodes of Political Violence 1946-2013Compiled by Dr. Monty G. Marshall Director, Center for Systemic Peace. lists 331 episodes of armed conflict (including 32 ongoing cases) that comprise a comprehensive accounting of all forms of major armed conflicts in the world over the contemporary period: 1946-2013
- The Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD)"The Social Conflict Analysis Database (SCAD) includes protests, riots, strikes, inter-communal conflict, government violence against civilians, and other forms of social conflict not systematically tracked in other conflict datasets. SCAD currently includes information on social conflicts from 1990-2013, covering all of Africa and now also Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean."
Public Datasets
- Data.govFederal, state and local data from the United States government.
- UNdataSearch a variety of United Nations statistical databases.
- World Bank DataSearch data by country, topic and indicators.
- IPUMS (Public Use Micro-Data)Consists of more than fifty high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses and from the American Community Surveys.
- EU Open Data Portal"European open data from international, European Union, national, regional, local and geodata portals."
- Google Dataset SearchNew search feature on Google to locate datasets available in the open web.
Health Data
- CDC: Data and StatisticsThe Center for Disease Control and Prevention provides data and statistics browsable by topic.
- PAHO: Pan American Health Organization (WHO)The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is an international public health agency with more than 100 years of experience in working to improve health and living standards of the countries of the Americas.
- Global Health ObservatoryThe GHO data repository is WHO's gateway to health-related statistics for its 194 Member States. It provides access to over 1000 indicators on priority health topics.
