Introduction

2020-04-04

rgho is an R package to access WHO GHO data from R via the Athena web service, an API providing a simple query interface to the World Health Organization’s data and statistics content.

The Global Health Observatory

As stated by the WHO website: The GHO data repository contains an extensive list of indicators, which can be selected by theme or through a multi-dimension query functionality. It is the World Health Organization’s main health statistics repository.

Data structure

GHO data is composed of indicators structured in dimensions. The list of dimensions is available in vignette("b-dimensions", "rgho"), the list of indicators for the GHO dimension (the main dimension) in vignette("c-codes-gho", "rgho")).

It is possible to access dimensions with get_gho_dimensions():

get_gho_dimensions()
## A 'GHO' object of 143 elements.
## 
##                                  Label                ID
## 1    SUBSTANCE_ABUSE_ADVERTISING_TYPES   ADVERTISINGTYPE
## 2                            Age Group          AGEGROUP
## 3                          Action area     ALCACTIONAREA
## 4 SUBSTANCE_ABUSE_ALCOHOL_POLICY_YEARS ALCOHOLPOLICYYEAR
## 5                       Beverage Types       ALCOHOLTYPE
## 6                   AMR GLASS Category  AMRGLASSCATEGORY
## ...
## 
## (Printing 6 first elements.)

And codes for a given dimension with get_gho_codes():

get_gho_codes(dimension = "COUNTRY")
## A 'GHO' object of 247 elements.
## 
##         Label  ID
## 1       Aruba ABW
## 2 Afghanistan AFG
## 3      Angola AGO
## 4    Anguilla AIA
## 5     Albania ALB
## 6     Andorra AND
## ...
## 
## (Printing 6 first elements.)
## 
## Attributes:
## 
## DS
## FIPS
## GEOMETRY
## IOC
## ISO
## ISO2
## ITU
## LAND_AREA_KMSQ_2012
## LANGUAGES_EN_2012
## MARC
## MORT
## SHORTNAMEES
## SHORTNAMEFR
## WHO
## WHOLEGALSTATUS
## WHO_REGION
## WHO_REGION_CODE
## WMO
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_CODE
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_GNI_REFERENCE_YEAR
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_RELEASE_DATE
get_gho_codes(dimension = "GHO")
## A 'GHO' object of 3308 elements.
## 
##                                                                            Label
## 1                                      Ambient air pollution attributable deaths
## 2    Ambient air pollution attributable DALYs per 100'000 children under 5 years
## 3                                    Household air pollution attributable deaths
## 4          Household air pollution attributable deaths in children under 5 years
## 5                 Household air pollution attributable deaths per 100'000 capita
## 6 Household air pollution attributable deaths per 100'000 children under 5 years
##       ID
## 1  AIR_1
## 2 AIR_10
## 3 AIR_11
## 4 AIR_12
## 5 AIR_13
## 6 AIR_14
## ...
## 
## (Printing 6 first elements.)
## 
## Attributes:
## 
## CATEGORY
## DEFINITION_XML
## DISPLAY_ES
## DISPLAY_FR
## IMR_ID
## RENDERER_ID

The number of printed items can be changed by the option rgho.n.

Filtering results

Dimension codes can be filtered according to their attributes.

results <- get_gho_codes(dimension = "COUNTRY")

filter_gho(
  results,
  WHO_REGION_CODE == "EUR"
)
## A 'GHO' object of 53 elements.
## 
##        Label  ID
## 1    Albania ALB
## 2    Andorra AND
## 3    Armenia ARM
## 4    Austria AUT
## 5 Azerbaijan AZE
## 6    Belgium BEL
## ...
## 
## (Printing 6 first elements.)
## 
## Attributes:
## 
## DS
## FIPS
## GEOMETRY
## IOC
## ISO
## ISO2
## ITU
## LAND_AREA_KMSQ_2012
## LANGUAGES_EN_2012
## MARC
## MORT
## SHORTNAMEES
## SHORTNAMEFR
## WHO
## WHOLEGALSTATUS
## WHO_REGION
## WHO_REGION_CODE
## WMO
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_CODE
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_GNI_REFERENCE_YEAR
## WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_RELEASE_DATE

Attribute names and values can be displayed.

display_attributes(
  results
)
##  [1] "code"                                      
##  [2] "DS"                                        
##  [3] "FIPS"                                      
##  [4] "GEOMETRY"                                  
##  [5] "IOC"                                       
##  [6] "ISO"                                       
##  [7] "ISO2"                                      
##  [8] "ITU"                                       
##  [9] "LAND_AREA_KMSQ_2012"                       
## [10] "LANGUAGES_EN_2012"                         
## [11] "MARC"                                      
## [12] "MORT"                                      
## [13] "SHORTNAMEES"                               
## [14] "SHORTNAMEFR"                               
## [15] "WHO"                                       
## [16] "WHOLEGALSTATUS"                            
## [17] "WHO_REGION"                                
## [18] "WHO_REGION_CODE"                           
## [19] "WMO"                                       
## [20] "WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP"                   
## [21] "WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_CODE"              
## [22] "WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_GNI_REFERENCE_YEAR"
## [23] "WORLD_BANK_INCOME_GROUP_RELEASE_DATE"
display_attribute_values(
  results,
  "WHO_REGION_CODE"
)
## [1] "AFR"  "AMR"  "EMR"  "EUR"  "SEAR" "WPR"

Data download

An indicator can be downloaded as a data_frame with get_gho_data(). Here we use MDG_0000000001, Infant mortality rate (probability of dying between birth and age 1 per 1000 live births):

result <- get_gho_data(
  dimension = "GHO",
  code = "MDG_0000000001"
)

print(result, width = Inf)
## # A tibble: 33,066 x 11
##    GHO            PUBLISHSTATE  YEAR REGION COUNTRY SEX   `Display Value`
##    <chr>          <chr>        <dbl> <chr>  <chr>   <chr>           <dbl>
##  1 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2018 EMR    AFG     FMLE             44.5
##  2 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2017 EMR    AFG     BTSX             49.5
##  3 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EMR    AFG     FMLE             49.6
##  4 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2014 EMR    AFG     BTSX             55.1
##  5 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2012 EMR    AFG     FMLE             55.8
##  6 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2011 EMR    AFG     BTSX             61.9
##  7 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2010 EMR    AFG     MLE              68  
##  8 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2009 EMR    AFG     FMLE             62.7
##  9 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2007 EMR    AFG     MLE              76.1
## 10 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2006 EMR    AFG     FMLE             70.3
##    Numeric Low   High  Comments
##      <dbl> <lgl> <lgl> <lgl>   
##  1    44.5 NA    NA    NA      
##  2    49.5 NA    NA    NA      
##  3    49.6 NA    NA    NA      
##  4    55.1 NA    NA    NA      
##  5    55.8 NA    NA    NA      
##  6    61.9 NA    NA    NA      
##  7    68.0 NA    NA    NA      
##  8    62.7 NA    NA    NA      
##  9    76.1 NA    NA    NA      
## 10    70.3 NA    NA    NA      
## # … with 33,056 more rows

Filter requests

The filter argument in get_gho_data() allows request filtering:

result <- get_gho_data(
  dimension = "GHO",
  code = "MDG_0000000001",
  filter = list(
    REGION = "EUR",
    YEAR = "2015"
  )
)

print(result, width = Inf)
## # A tibble: 162 x 11
##    GHO            PUBLISHSTATE  YEAR REGION COUNTRY SEX   `Display Value`
##    <chr>          <chr>        <dbl> <chr>  <chr>   <chr>           <dbl>
##  1 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ALB     BTSX              8.5
##  2 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ALB     FMLE              7.8
##  3 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ALB     MLE               9.2
##  4 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    AND     BTSX              3.1
##  5 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    AND     FMLE              2.8
##  6 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    AND     MLE               3.3
##  7 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ARM     BTSX             12.8
##  8 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ARM     FMLE             11.3
##  9 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    ARM     MLE              14.2
## 10 MDG_0000000001 PUBLISHED     2015 EUR    AUT     BTSX              3  
##    Numeric Low   High  Comments
##      <dbl> <lgl> <lgl> <lgl>   
##  1    8.54 NA    NA    NA      
##  2    7.83 NA    NA    NA      
##  3    9.20 NA    NA    NA      
##  4    3.09 NA    NA    NA      
##  5    2.81 NA    NA    NA      
##  6    3.35 NA    NA    NA      
##  7   12.8  NA    NA    NA      
##  8   11.3  NA    NA    NA      
##  9   14.2  NA    NA    NA      
## 10    3.05 NA    NA    NA      
## # … with 152 more rows

Other parameters

Other parameters than format can be specified to get_gho_data() (such as apikey, asof…). Parameters are listed on this page. Note that most parameters are not available to general users.

For details about how the requests are performed and the option availables (especially proxy settings) see vignette("e-details", "rgho").