ReviewGlobal health action
Global estimates of country health indicators: useful, unnecessary, inevitable?
Review in Global health action. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
22 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Interventions to improve district-level routine health data in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review.BMJ global health · 2021Pooled it
- The contribution of bullying victimisation to the burden of anxiety and depressive disorders in Australia.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2019Pooled it
- Spatial and temporal inequalities in non-communicable disease mortality across the East African community: a Bayesian spatio-temporal analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- The Role of Big Data in Developing Innovative Predictive Learning Models for Neglected Tropical Diseases within the New Generation of the Evidence-Based Medicine Pyramid.Le infezioni in medicina · 2025Review
- Health system description and assessment: a scoping review of templates for systematic analyses.Health research policy and systems · 2024Article
- Discrepancies in dengue burden estimates: a comparative analysis of reported cases and global burden of disease study, 2010-2019.Journal of travel medicine · 2024Article
- Model for Early Prediction of Preeclampsia: A Nested Case Controlled Study in Indian Women.Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology of India · 2022Article
- Mortality estimates for WHO SEAR countries: problems and prospects.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- 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
- Developing a tool to monitor knowledge translation in the health system: results from an international Delphi study.European journal of public health · 2021Article
- The global burden of chronic hepatitis B virus infection: comparison of country-level prevalence estimates from four research groups.International journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- Survey on the indexes of health equity in the physical environment and infrastructures of Kermanshah province, Iran.The Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association · 2021Article
- Known and Unknown Transboundary Infectious Diseases as Hybrid Threats.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Exploring why global health needs are unmet by research efforts: the potential influences of geography, industry and publication incentives.Health research policy and systems · 2020Article
- Depressive-Like Behaviors Induced by Chronic Social Defeat Stress Are Associated With HDAC7 Reduction in the Nucleus Accumbens.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Article
- Metric partnerships: global burden of disease estimates within the World Bank, the World Health Organisation and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.Wellcome open research · 2019Article
- Mortality of neurological disorders in Tanzania: analysis of baseline data from sample vital registration with verbal autopsy (SAVVY).Global health action · 2019Article
- Evidence for national universal eye health plans.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2018Article
- Global, regional, and national mortality trends in older children and young adolescents (5-14 years) from 1990 to 2016: an analysis of empirical data.The Lancet. Global health · 2018Article
- Measuring progress and projecting attainment on the basis of past trends of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.Lancet (London, England) · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe MDG era relied on global health estimates to fill data gaps and ensure temporal and cross-country comparability in reporting progress. Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals will present new challenges, requiring enhanced capacities to generate, analyse, interpret and use country produced data.
objectiveTo summarize the development of global health estimates and discuss their utility and limitations from global and country perspectives.
designDescriptive paper based on findings of intercountry workshops, reviews of literatureon and synthesis of experiences.
resultsProducers of global health estimates focus on the technical soundness of estimation methods and comparability of the results across countries and over time. By contrast, country users are more concerned about the extent of their involvement in the estimation process and hesitate to buy into estimates derived using methods their technical staff cannot explain and that differ from national data sources. Quantitative summaries of uncertainty may be of limited practical use in policy discussions where decisions need to be made about what to do next.
conclusionsGreater transparency and involvement of country partners in the development of global estimates will help improve ownership, strengthen country capacities for data production and use, and reduce reliance on externally produced estimates.
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.