Poor data are harming fight against inequality, warns WHO

Only half of countries separate health data by race and other crucial factors, agency says

The World Health Organization has called on countries around the world to strengthen their data collection to better track inequality, warning that crucial information on race, gender and other factors is often missing.

Despite the unequal impact of the coronavirus on different groups highlighting the importance of sex, wealth, education, ethnicity, race and gender to health, only 51 per cent of countries disaggregate data in their national health reports, the WHO said. This is causing the health status of small groups to be obscured in national averages and better data are necessary to root out inequalities, the UN’s health agency said in a statement on 6 April.