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United Nations Research Guide

Guide to information created by the UN and the UN Family of Organizations. Grateful acknowledgement to Jim Church, University of California Berkeley Libraries, whose work is the basis for this guide.

United Nations Health Organizations & Search Tools

UN Health Organizations

AIDS and Human Rights. Section of the UN Human Rights web site on HIV/AIDS.

International Labour Organization: Programme on HIV/AIDS. ILO section on HIV/AIDS as a workplace issue.

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Chief UN agency leading the global fight against HIV/AIDS. .

UNFPA - Sexual and Reproductive Health. From the United Nations Population Fund.

World Health Organization. United Nations specialized agency for the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of Health. Oversees the following regional offices, many of which host separate databases and publications. Publishes Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

UN Health Databases & Search Engines

African Index Medicus (AIM). From the WHO Regional Office in Africa. Index to African health literature and information sources.

CISDOC. Archived.  From the International Labour Organization. Citations to documents on occupational health and safety, chemical safety data, law and regulations, journal articles, books and ILO conventions.

Global Index Medicus - provides worldwide access to biomedical and public health literature produced by and within low-middle income countries.

WHO IRIS (Institutional Repository for Information Sharing)

International Digest of Health Legislation. Contains a selection of national and international health legislation. Texts of legislation are summarized in English. Where possible, links are provided to web sites that contain full text.

Index Medicus for the South-East Asian Region. Database of articles published in health science journals within the WHO South-East Asia Region.

Virtual Health Sciences Library for the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Health Sciences digital library from the WHO regional office in the Eastern Mediterranean. 

WHO Reproductive Health Library.  a tool developed by the World Health Organization to help promote evidence-based reproductive health care. The library comprises reviews from the Cochrane Library, which are relevant to reproductive health with comments and recommendations on the applicability of the findings of these reviews in developing-country settings. It also includes implementation aids as well as other useful information related to reproductive health.

World Health Organization Library. Includes links to resources such as IRIS (which emphasizes recent publications), Global Index Medicus, WHO Publications (browse), WHOLIS, the online catalog of the World Health Organization library (link not working), and regional office libraries,

World Health Organization Documentation. Documentation in all official languages of WHO for World Health Assembly (WHA) and Executive Board (EB) and Programme and Budget sessions. Includes resolution and decisions and archive back to 1998.

United Nations Health Data & Books

UN Health Data

Global Health Observatory WHO. Gateway site to statistical data from the World Health Organization. Includes sections on disease, 

PLISA Health Information Platform for the Americas. Health indicators for countries and territories in the Americas from period 1995 -. From the Pan-American Health Organization.

UNAIDS Data. Data portal from the UN AIDS Agency.

WHO Data Dashboards - for various specific diseases and conditions.  Examples include:  COVID-19, Nutrition, MERS-CoV, and others.

WHO Health Indicators - 

WHO Health Data by Country

WHO Morbidity & Mortality Database. Includes detailed mortality data by cause for specific countries. These are raw data files with documentation and require expertise with statistical applications. 

WHO Publications 

World Health Statistics. Online statistical reference volume on a basic health indicators. Include the majority of health indicators selected for monitoring progress towards the Millennium Development Goals.

UN Health Books (very selective!)