On September 3rd, the Pan American Health Organization presented a new web portal to improve access to data and analysis on health inequalities in the Americas. Evidence and Intelligence for Action on SDG-3 Targets seeks to facilitate the monitoring carried out by countries and organizations of the internationally agreed-upon objectives to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Guarantee a healthy life and promote wellness for everyone at all ages.
The initiative is part of PAHO’s goal to monitor SDG 3 indicators and inequalities, which have been exacerbated in the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The portal aims to increase accountability in the Region when it comes to monitoring progress towards SDG-3 and therefore function as a one-stop shop for data collection, analysis, and testing that will allow Governments, health systems, and other organizations to take informed action to implement this global strategy.
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, progress toward meeting the SDG-3 targets, while positive in some areas, was unequal,” said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Deputy Director. “We really need to use the information provided by this portal to review each country’s strategies and see how they can adapt or develop new strategies, to get closer to those who are currently not being reached by health services and initiatives.”
“Our goal at PAHO, and with the SDGs in general, is to leave no one behind,” said Dr. Sebastián García Saisó, Director of the Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health at PAHO. “We provide concrete data to increase the capacity of member states to take measures for the social inclusion and well-being of the population of the Americas.”
The new portal called “Evidence and intelligence for action on SDG-3 targets” was presented by Dr. García Saisó and houses a variety of functionalities and specialized content, including:
- The Regional SDG3 Dashboard that allows one to visualize the progress of the SDG 3 goals and their inequalities in the region of the Americas (and in the future it will allow for the visualization of the progress of the goals and their inequalities in each country based on information from the indicators at the subnational level).
- A dashboard of country profiles that describes the social inequalities of SDG 3 indicators within countries, based on data from household surveys in the countries.
- An Executive Synthesis dashboard for each SDG 3 indicator that describes the trend and social inequality, in addition to the existing evidence.
- Articles published in the SDG3 Special Edition in PAHO’s Pan American Journal of Public Health of PAHO.
- A methodology for monitoring SDG 3 indicators and their inequalities, and a methodology for establishing national targets in SDG 3 indicators with a focus on reducing geographic inequalities.
- A toolbox that includes methodologies for the analysis of social inequalities in health and instruments for the monitoring and analysis of social inequalities in the SDG3 indicators.
- A database of SDG 3 indicators at the national and regional level and a database (from household surveys) of SDG3 indicators disaggregated by equity stratifiers (socioeconomic indicators) within countries.
BIREME and information on ODS3
According to Dr. Diego González “BIREME, being a PAHO/WHO Specialized Center in scientific and technical information in health, joins this initiative, contributing with the support to the development of platforms that showcase the scientific production of Latin America and the Caribbean and the evidence for decision-making in health. LILACS, as well as BIGG, PIE, BRISA (Regional Database for Health Technology Assessment Reports of the Americas), and Evid@easy can be found in the Evidence for Action in Health space of the main menu, and within such in PAHO databases.
In perspective is the development of a Platform for the Recording of Best Practices for the SDG3 objectives, which is being developed by the EIH Department, within the framework of an inter-programmatic work of BIREME and the Knowledge Management Unit (KM).
Reference sources
PAHO/WHO. PAHO launches new portal to monitor health indicators in the Americas. Available at: https://www.paho.org/en/news/2-10-2021-paho-launches-new-portal-monitor-health-indicators-americas
Talking points – Launch of the SDG 3 Portal, by Antonio Sanhueza (Health Analysis and Equity Metrics – HA/EIH/PAHO)
About the 2030 Agenda
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015, consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which are an urgent call to action by all countries in a global partnership. States recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand in hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and stimulate economic growth, while addressing climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.
Links of interest
Visit the new portal Evidence and Intelligence for Action on the SDG-3 Targets
What is the SDG-3 about? (Video in Spanish)