The Director’s View
Research published on mortality trends in malaria has focused new attention on adult deaths, and our research on breast and cervical cancer trends has highlighted the increasing burden on the developing world.
Since opening our doors in 2007, IHME has grown from a handful of people into an organization with more than 100 researchers and staff. We published peer-reviewed research articles on subjects such as mortality and cause of death trends, rates of vaccination and bed net coverage, the connection between increased years of education and reducing child deaths, global health financing, and innovative methods that improve the measurement and estimates of all these areas. This July, IHME celebrates its fifth anniversary. We’ve come a long way in five years and I want to take this time to highlight some of our achievements and thank the people and organizations that helped us carry out our goal to improve people’s health through better information. Hundreds of researchers, health experts, and policymakers around the world work with us to improve population health measurement. Without their support we wouldn’t be where we are today. Some of the best examples of our impact are the innovations in measuring mortality. With improved measurement in the area of maternal mortality, for instance, IHME changed the conversation about the progress in reducing the deaths of women due to complications from pregnancy and childbirth. It was widely believed there had been no progress, and that a halfmillion women were dying annually from maternal deaths. Our analysis found fewer than 300,000 deaths due to maternal causes, and since publishing our research other organizations have adopted some of our analytical methods and are now reporting similar trends.
www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org
Our work tracking health financing has similarly attracted attention from policymakers and governments eager to make connections between money spent and progress made. Launched in 2009, our annual Financing Global Health report tracks public and private contributions to development assistance for health worldwide. IHME shares this work with NGOs, international agencies, and national policymakers each year when the new numbers are released. In the US, research showing that progress in women’s life expectancy is lagging behind the progress men are making has caught the attention of journalists, county health officials, and the general public. Becoming a premier training ground for future global health researchers and leaders was another goal. We have had a total of 55 Post-Bachelor Fellows and 23 Post-Graduate Fellows at the Institute. Our master’s program, the only health metrics and evaluation track in the country, has produced eight graduates. This fall we will kick off a new PhD program that will complete our educational offerings in metrics. The combination of our innovative research and quality training is helping to create a stronger foundation for health metrics and fundamentally strategic decision-making in population health. Today we look forward to projects just getting underway. In Latin America, for example, the InterAmerican Development Bank has hired IHME to evaluate the effectiveness of its ambitious health reform program in eight countries, a project you will read more about in this issue. And the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed an agreement this month with IHME that will result in a detailed analysis of population health trends in that country.
We are discussing similar projects with other countries around the world. In this issue of IHME Impact: 1. Beneath the Surface looks at the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study. As the estimates are being finalized and readied for peer review, IHME researchers travel the world, consulting with researchers and country governments about the preliminary findings. 2. In Connections, we look at how IHME fellows and faculty are spreading the word about the world’s latest health trends to journalists and the community. 3. In Deep Dive, we take a closer look at IHME’s Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) and the challenges to finding all the data that are out there. 4. The research highlighted in Innovations is a roundup of IHME’s latest published work, including studies on diabetes management in Iran, the slowing of global health financing due to the global financial crisis, innovative causes of death modeling, and global malaria mortality trends. 5. In Ripple Effect, read how IHME is providing technical assistance to the Salud Mesoamérica 2015 Initiative, monitoring progress and generating insight and evidence on how results are achieved in the areas of reproductive health and maternal and child health, including immunization and nutrition. Thanks again for your support over the last five years. We look forward to continuing to make a measurable difference over the next five to come.
Sincerely, Christopher J.L. Murray Institute Director and Professor of Global Health
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