Electronic 
Resources

The principal agency that produces general-purpose health data. NCHS is responsible for the collection, maintenance, analysis, and dissemination of statistics on the nature and extent of the health, illness, and disability of the U.S. population; the impact of illness and disability on the economy; the effects of environmental, social, and other health hazards and healthcare costs and financing.

The FastStats site provides quick access to statistics on topics of public health importance and is organized alphabetically. Links are provided to publications that include the statistics presented, to sources of more data, and to related web pages.

HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available website integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (eg, Google News) to curated personal accounts (eg, ProMED) to validated official alerts (eg, World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.

WHO's annual World Health Statistics reports present the most recent health statistics for WHO's 193 member states. Links to health statistics and data sets as well as resources to support data collection.

UNAIDS: Epidemiology

UNAIDS and WHO modify their estimates as new data, research and analyses emerge. As advances are made to the methodology of data collection and surveillance, the estimates of numbers of people living with HIV are revised to reflect these improvements. Revisions are also made retrospectively for each year to allow for a more accurate assessment of the epidemic's evolution over time. For this reason, it is inaccurate to draw conclusions by comparing the estimates from one report to another.

F1000 Posters is a unique open access repository for posters across biology and medicine. By keeping the work visible long after a meeting has ended it maximizes the time, effort and cost invested in creating each poster. F1000 Posters has received positive responses from presenters and societies alike, and we have support from leading Journals and Publishers including Nature, PNAS, Elsevier, BMJ, BioMed Central, PLoS, SAGE etc. (see site for a full list of responses).

Supercourse, an epidemiology website that may be of interest, features a global repository of lectures on public health and prevention, targeting educators worldwide. The site has a network of over 65,000 scientists in 174 countries who are sharing, without charge, a library of 4,588 lectures in 31 languages. Topics are organized under the broad headings of epidemiology, special diseases, public health, telecommunications and biostatistics.

The Neuroscience Information Network (NIF) is a dynamic inventory of web-based neuroscience resources, including data, materials, and tools. An initiative of the National Institutes Of Health Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, NIF advances neuroscience research by enabling discovery and access to public research data and tools worldwide through an open source, networked environment. The site offers an extensive registry of over 2,500 resources plus a web index and literature archive. Direct query of more than 40 databases is also provided.

A free source of evidence-based information for health care professionals and for researchers studying liver injury associated with prescription and over-the-counter drugs, herbals, and dietary supplements is now available from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers and health care professionals can use the LiverTox database to identify basic and clinical research questions to be answered and to chart optimal ways to diagnose and control drug-induced liver injury.