How do you get equal health care for all? A huge new database holds clues

Even a straightforward cataract surgery may be impossible in many places. These patients underwent surgery as part of a campaign run by Himalayan Cataract Project at the Bisidimo Hospital in Ethiopia. Surgeons performed more than 1,600 cataract surgeries during a six-day event. (Jason Beaubien/NPR)

"What gets measured gets done." It's an expression often cited by global health advocates, notes World Health Organization official Erin Kenney. And she says it's the reason she's so encouraged by WHO's unveiling this week of a sweeping new database highlighting health inequalities that need addressing.

Billed as the world's most comprehensive collection of statistics on the topic, the Health Inequality Data Repository allows users to compare how people of differing incomes, ages, genders and rural-versus-urban settings compare on more than 2,000 measures of health, ranging from access to key health services to child mortality rates – and even upload and analyze their own data.