[World Bank] Health, Nutrition and Population Data and Statistics

From the data section of The World Bank

HealthStats is the World Bank’s comprehensive database of Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) statistics.
It includes over 250 indicators on topics such as health financing, HIV/AIDS, immunization, malaria and tuberculosis, health workforce and health facilities use, nutrition, reproductive health, population and population projections, cause of death, non-communicable diseases, water and sanitation, with background information on poverty, labor force, economy and education.

Users can access HNP data by country, topic, or indicator, and view the resulting data (and wealth quintiles) in tables, charts or maps that can be easily shared through email, Facebook and Twitter.

The above World Bank  web page also includes a  population growth rate visualization.
A country’s color changes as the growth rate varies annually from 1961 to 2011.
Options for commentary and a chart URL (no custom colors)

Check out the Data Visualizer for bigger map. The visualizer also includes  options to locate individual countries (with rates), and “freeze frames” by year.

Related articles

• “Africa rising” and the shifting disease burden – Africa is a Country (innerstandingisness.wordpress.com)
• The World Bank’s open data: 7 apps to play with (ted.com)
• World Bank study finds Ghana’s health insurance system heading to bankruptcy in 2013 (ghanabusinessnews.com)
• Biennial forum focuses on development of long term health strategy (kaieteurnewsonline.com)
• The key to better healthcare lies in data (guardian.co.uk)

Better medicine, brought to you by big data through new types of data analysis

 

A good overview of how improved data analysis and presentation is improving health care delivery.

I especially liked the slideshare presentation found below in Related Articles.
The 42 slides in Big data – a brief overview outlines what big data is, its sources and processes, how it is analyzed, current “players”,examples, market analysis, future, and opportunities.

From the 15 July 2012 blog post at Gigaom

Slowly but surely, health care is becoming a killer app for big data. Whether it’s Hadoop, machine learning, natural-language processing or some other technique, folks in the worlds of medicine and hospital administration understand that new types of data analysis are the key to helping them take their fields to the next level.

Here are some of the interesting use cases we’ve written about over the past year or so, and a few others I’ve just come across recently. If you have a cool one — or a suggestion for a new use of big data within the healthcare space — share it in the comments:

Genomics. This is the epitomic case for big data and health care. Genome sequencing isgetting cheaper by the day and produces mountains of data. Companies such asDNAnexus, Bina Technologies, Appistry and NextBio want to make analyzing that data to discover cures for diseases faster, easier and cheaper than ever using lots cutting-edge algorithms and lots of cloud computing cores.

BI[definition of business intelligence] for doctors. Doctors and staff at Seattle Children’s Hospital are using Tableau to analyze and visualize terabytes of data dispersed across the institution’s servers and databases. Not only does visualizing the data help reduce medical errors and help the hospital plan trials but, as of this time last year, its focus on data had saved the hospital $3 million on supply chain costs….

..Semantic search. Imagine you’re a doctor trying to learn about a new patient or figure out who among your patients might benenfit from a new technique. But patient records have been scattered throughout departments, vary in format and, perhaps worst of all, all use the ontologies of the department that created the record. A startup called Apixio is trying to fix this by centralizing records in the cloud and applying semantic analysis to uncover everything doctors need, regardless who wrote it…

..Getting ahead of disease. It’s always good if you figure out how to diagnose diseases early without expensive tests, and that’s just what Seton Healthcare was able to dothanks to its big data efforts…

and more!

Related articles

• Better medicine, brought to you by big data [GigaOM] (gigaom.com)
• Intel and NextBio seek Big Data upgrades in genomics (fiercebiotechit.com)
• Big Changes Are Ahead For The Health Care Industry, Courtesy Of Big Data (fastcompany.com)

• Big data – a brief overview (slideshare.net) [a slide presentation, 42 slides]

• Oracle adopts the popular R language for the enterprise and big data. (oracle.com)
• Presentation: Scalability Challenges in Big Data Science (architects.dzone.com)
• Salesforce intros Radian6 Insights for social big data (zdnet.com)
• Big Data Modeling – Part I – Defining “Big Data” and “Data Modeling” (infocus.emc.com)
• NextBio and Intel Announce Collaboration to Optimize Use of Hadoop Stack And Move Forward With Big Data Technologies in Genomics (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• A Beautiful Friendship: Big Data and Social Media (blogs.sap.com)
• Stanford rides Big Data wave in medical research (fiercebiotechit.com)
• Big Data? Big Deal! (clean-clouds.com)

How visualizing health problems through infographics could help solve medical mysteries

In the blog posting, an information specialist designs an infographic to visualizing her own medical history and symptoms related to the auto-immune disease Myasthenia Gravis. She does so in hopes of making the most of my appointment with a new doctor.

The post  includes both her medical history and the infographic that, in her words “charts the progress of my Myasthenia Gravis since I was 13 – not only the hard facts like the medications I was taking at the time, but the way I *felt* during those times and the degree of weakness I was experiencing. Overlaid is the progression of my stomach problems over my lifetime, including the points in time when I took antibiotics.”

Related articles

• When the Patient Designs Infographics (scienceroll.com)
• Infographics Solve Information Overload, Says Visual.ly’s CCO (contently.com)

“Data Day” Conference Shows the Power of Numbers « Science Is Everyone’s Story

“Data Day” Conference Shows the Power of Numbers « Science Is Everyone’s Story.

From the 28 January 2012 blog item

There’s power in numbers. That was the consensus in the workshops I visited this Friday at the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission’s Data Day in Boston.

The name “Data Day” may not conjure up visions of dramatic reversals of public policy. But the community advocates and data experts at the conference knew otherwise. Here are two stories they told about how data can change how we judge people and situations – both socially and legally.

• Assistant Professor Gia Barboza of Northeastern University did a pilot study demonstrating that employing young people could reverse trends toward illegal and violent behavior. Lack of job opportunities correlates with depression and aggression. “This job kept me off the street,” said one of her interviewees. Barboza told news@Northeastern that “when you think about the long-term costs associated with incarceration, it’s much more efficient to fund organizations that employ these youth and provide them with skills that help them achieve their long-term goals.” This conclusion could apply to green jobs programs.
• Derrick Jackson, a columnist at the Boston Globe, said that data can bring “sanity” to public policy about justice and the environment. For example, he said, data helped to eliminate a double standard in sentencing urban and suburban young people who used cocaine. He said environmentalists should tell stories about climate change using data and use these stories to drive policy changes.

There are many ways environmental organizations can use data to change conversations. The Knight Foundation funded a data-sharing project which bridged divides between environmental justice groups. Projects like this one can yield local stories for both traditional and social media. What chemicals are in your neighborhood’s backyard?

Although the EPA’s approach to reporting potential flooding may seem dry, reports on climate change indicators in the United States can also provide story ideas for journalists. If climate change produces floods or disrupts the growing season, superimposing those maps on maps of crop production could yield interesting results – especially for crops grown in low-lying areas. In some states, the answer to the question “What’s for dinner?” may be very different in a few years from what it is today.

Related articles

• New Data-Driven Methods For Understanding Climate Change (chimalaya.org)
• Research reveals new data-driven methods for understanding climate change (physorg.com)