William Heisel, Director of Global Services at IHME with Matt Bird at Humanity 2.0 (Vatican City)

HIGHLIGHTS

• IHME is the biggest health catalog of global health data in the world
• IHME has data from every country and 900 locations around the globe
• IHME goal is to provide the world’s best health evidence

(ESG News) – If we make the right choices, we can solve huge problems like child mortality, bringing the number from about 5 million deaths a year down to near zero, said William Heisel, Director of Global Services at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. 

“The moment is really now,” Heisel told Matt Bird, Host of the Traders Network Show, at the 2019 Humanity 2.0 Forum, an event focused on human flourishing, held in Rome, Italy. “We have the resources, we have the global will. We just need to follow the data.”

IHME specializes in that data. The University of Washington-based organization is essentially a catalog and analytics shop of global health data, Heisel said. 

“We have health data on every country on the planet, and more than 900 locations around the world,” he said. That data cuts across time, space and genders, and can be pinpointed to an individual zipcode, Heisel continued.  

“We can literally tell you anything you want to know about health,” he said. 

Heisel said IHME is focused on partnering with the private sector to use the data to solve health challenges and improve outcomes. The next step is testing “what if” questions to determine how new variables—such as behaviors and treatments—can influence results, Heisel said. 

Answering these questions can help entities target resources and funding, Hesiel said. 

“What will give you the biggest bang for the buck in health?”