ArticleGlobal health action
In the eye of the beholder: to make global health estimates useful, make them more socially robust.
Article in Global health action. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Making intersectoral stakeholder engagement in medicine quality research work: lessons from the STARmeds study in Indonesia.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
- Building trust in clinical research: a systems approach to ethical engagement and sustainable outcomes.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- The availability of essential medicines in primary health centres in Indonesia: achievements and challenges across the archipelago.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2024Article
- Global Burden of Disease 2017 estimates for Major Depressive Disorder: a critical appraisal of the epidemiological evidence.JRSM open · 2023Article
- Refining circumstances of mortality categories (COMCAT): a verbal autopsy model connecting circumstances of deaths with outcomes for public health decision-making.Global health action · 2021Article
- The ethical implications of verbal autopsy: responding to emotional and moral distress.BMC medical ethics · 2021Article
- Substandard and Falsified Medicines: Proposed Methods for Case Finding and Sentinel Surveillance.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2021Article
- Beyond the metrics of health research performance in African countries.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Setting the global research agenda for community-based HIV service delivery through the faith sector.Health research policy and systems · 2021Article
- Towards an appropriate ethics framework for Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS): learning from issues faced in diverse HDSS in sub-Saharan Africa.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Im/moral healthcare: HIV and universal health coverage in Indonesia.Sexual and reproductive health matters · 2020Article
- Strengthening accountability of the global health metrics enterprise.Lancet (London, England) · 2020Review
- Field-testing of a rapid survey method to assess the prevalence and causes of hearing loss in Gao'an, Jiangxi province, China.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2020Article
- Improving health promotion through central rating of interventions: the need for Responsive Guidance.Health research policy and systems · 2017Article
- Research impact of systems-level long-term care research: a multiple case study.Health research policy and systems · 2017Article
- Bridging the data gaps: do we have the right balance between country data and global estimates?Global health actionArticle
- Assessing the performance of local pharmaceutical systems: An analytical approach to improve access to medicine.The journal of medicine accessReview
- Global estimates of country health indicators: useful, unnecessary, inevitable?Global health actionReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A plethora of new development goals and funding institutions have greatly increased the demand for internationally comparable health estimates in recent years, and have brought important new players into the field of health estimate production. These changes have rekindled debates about the validity and legitimacy of global health estimates. This paper draws on country case studies and personal experience to support our opinion that the production and use of estimates are deeply embedded in specific social, economic, political and ideational contexts, which differ at different levels of the global health architecture. Broadly, most global health estimates tend to be made far from the local contexts in which the data upon which they are based are collected, and where the results of estimation processes must ultimately be used if they are to make a difference to the health of individuals. Internationally standardised indicators are necessary, but they are no substitute for data that meet local needs, and that fit with local ideas of what is credible and useful. In other words, data that are both technically and socially robust for those who make key decisions about health. We suggest that greater engagement of local actors (and local data) in the formulation, communication and interpretation of health estimates would increase the likelihood that these data will be used by those most able to translate them into health gains for the longer term. Besides strengthening national information systems, this requires ongoing interaction, building trust and establishing a communicative infrastructure. Local capacities to use knowledge to improve health must be supported.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.