ABSTRACT
The initial reaction of most readers to the above chapter title is probably not one of great excitement. We accept that, specialists aside, data and the statistical measures derived from them have a low ‘interest quotient’ for most people. However, we argue this subject is in fact one of the most important discussed in the book and we hope we can convey that importance to you in the course of the volume. Put bluntly, the current global population health data situation can only be described as seriously incomplete and highly variable in quality, and without major improvements in data collection, processing, access, analysis and application, desired improvements in global health will inevitably be retarded.
