WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Scraper

Extract health statistics from the WHO Global Health Observatory — the world's most authoritative and comprehensive public health database with 2,000+ indicators across 194 countries, spanning life expectancy, disease burden, mortality, nutrition, tobacco use, mental health, maternal and child health, and more.

What It Does

This actor queries the public WHO GHO OData API (no authentication required) to retrieve structured health statistics including:

• Indicator name and code
• Country and WHO region
• Year of measurement
• Numeric value with confidence intervals (low/high estimates)
• Sex/age dimensions when available

Modes

Mode	Description
getIndicatorData	Fetch all data points for a specific WHO indicator code
searchIndicators	Search the WHO GHO catalog for indicators by keyword
listCountries	List all 234 countries and territories in the GHO

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	getIndicatorData, searchIndicators, or listCountries
indicatorCode	string	WHO indicator code (e.g. WHOSIS_000001). Required for mode=getIndicatorData
searchKeyword	string	Keyword to search indicators (e.g. diabetes, tobacco, mortality)
countryCode	string	ISO-3166 alpha-3 country code (e.g. USA, GBR, FRA)
regionCode	select	WHO region code (AFR, AMR, EUR, SEAR, EMR, WPR)
yearFrom	integer	Include data from this year onward
yearTo	integer	Include data up to this year
sex	select	Sex dimension filter (Both, Female, Male)
maxItems	integer	Maximum records to return (default 200, max 5000)

Output Fields

{
  "indicatorCode": "WHOSIS_000001",
  "indicatorName": "Life expectancy at birth (years)",
  "countryCode": "USA",
  "regionCode": "AMR",
  "region": "Americas",
  "country": "Americas",
  "year": 2022,
  "value": "76.1 [75.9-76.3]",
  "numericValue": 76.1,
  "lowEstimate": 75.9,
  "highEstimate": 76.3,
  "sex": "Both sexes",
  "dataUpdatedAt": "2024-08-02",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/WHOSIS_000001",
  "recordType": "healthStatistic",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-02T12:00:00+00:00"
}

Common Indicator Codes

Code	Indicator
WHOSIS_000001	Life expectancy at birth (years)
WHOSIS_000002	Healthy life expectancy (HALE) at birth (years)
WHOSIS_000007	Healthy life expectancy (HALE) at age 60 (years)
MDG_0000000017	Under-five mortality rate (per 1000 live births)
SA_0000001462	Alcohol, recorded per capita consumption (15+)
NCD_BMI_30A	Prevalence of obesity (18+ years, age-standardized)

Use mode=searchIndicators with a keyword to discover more codes.

Example Use Cases

• Global health research — Download life expectancy or disease burden data for all countries
• Country comparisons — Compare health metrics across WHO regions
• Time-series analysis — Track health trends by year for specific countries
• Public health dashboards — Power data visualizations with authoritative WHO statistics

Data Source

Data comes from the WHO Global Health Observatory OData API (ghoapi.azureedge.net/api) — a free, publicly accessible API with no authentication required, maintained by the World Health Organization.

Frequently Asked Questions

How current is the data? The GHO is updated continuously. Most indicators have data through 2022 or 2023.

Are confidence intervals included? Yes — where available, the lowEstimate and highEstimate fields contain 95% confidence interval bounds.

Can I get data for a specific sex? Yes — use the sex filter (Both sexes, Female, Male).

What is the maximum dataset size? The API returns up to 5,000 records per run. For large indicators with many countries and years, use country or region filters to get specific subsets.