🏥 WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Indicators Scraper

🚀 Pull global health indicators from the WHO Global Health Observatory: 9,000+ metrics across 195 member states.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-07 · 📊 20 fields per record · 9,000+ indicators · 195 WHO member states · life expectancy, mortality, vaccinations, NCDs, mental health, SDG targets

The WHO Global Health Observatory Indicators Scraper pulls public health data from the WHO's Global Health Observatory (GHO). Output includes the indicator code, indicator name, country, year, observed value (numeric and formatted), region, sex/age dimensions, and source comments for any of the 9,000+ WHO health metrics.

GHO is the WHO's official statistics portal, covering 195 member states and territories with annual observations going back decades for some indicators. The scraper has two modes: list available indicators (search by keyword) or pull observations for a specific indicator code, optionally filtered by country or year.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Public health analysts, NGOs, epidemiologists, policy researchers, journalists, ML pipelines	Public-health research, policy analysis, country comparisons, ESG/SDG reporting, journalism, training health-prediction models

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📋 What the WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Indicators Scraper does

Five filtering workflows in a single run:

• 📚 Browse indicator catalog. List 9,000+ available indicator codes with names; search by keyword.
• 📊 Pull observations. Fetch observed values per country and year for any indicator.
• 🌍 Country filter. ISO-3 country code restricts results to one nation.
• 📅 Year filter. Restrict to a specific year for time-series snapshots.
• 🔍 Keyword search. Filter the indicator list by name (e.g. "life expectancy", "tobacco").

💡 Why it matters: clean, server-side filtering and fresh data on every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan up to 1,000,000.
mode	string	"indicators"	indicators or observations.
indicatorCode	string	""	e.g. WHOSIS_000001 for life expectancy. Required for observations mode.
country	string	""	ISO-3 country code (USA, IND, BRA, etc.).
year	string	""	Year filter.
search	string	""	Keyword for indicator-list search.

Example: list life-expectancy indicators.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "mode": "indicators",
    "search": "life expectancy"
}

Example: USA life expectancy at birth, all years.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "mode": "observations",
    "indicatorCode": "WHOSIS_000001",
    "country": "USA"
}

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📊 Output

Each record contains 20 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🆔 indicatorCode	string	"WHOSIS_000001"
📛 indicatorName	string	null
🌍 country	string	"USA"
🌐 region	string	"AMR"
🌐 regionName	string	"Americas"
📅 year	string	"2021"
📊 value	string	"77.4"
📊 numericValue	number	77.4
📉 low	number	null
📈 high	number	null
👥 sex	string	"BTSX"
🌐 language	string	"EN"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🏛️	Authoritative source. WHO is the UN's specialized health agency.
🌍	195 member states. Plus regional aggregates and partial-state territories.
📊	9,000+ indicators. Life expectancy, mortality, NCDs, mental health, vaccinations, SDG targets, healthcare workforce.
🆓	No auth. Free OData backend, no API key.
⚡	Fast. 100 records in under 30 seconds.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ This Actor	$5 free credit	9,000+ indicators	Live per run	mode, code, country, year, search	⚡ 2 min
Manual gho.who.int	Free	Manual	Live	Web filters	🕒 Manual
WHO bulk dumps	Free	All	Quarterly	Bulk only	🐢 ETL
Statista / commercial	$200+/month	Different scope	Live	Yes	🐢 Account

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Find the WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Indicators Scraper on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick filters and maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start.
5. 📥 Download. Grab results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

📊 Public Health Research Country-comparison studies Time-series mortality and disease tracking SDG health-target progress reports NCD prevalence research	🏥 Healthcare Strategy Map health-workforce shortages Track vaccination coverage Identify high-burden disease zones Build market-entry context for medtech
📰 Journalism Stat-backed reporting on global health Pandemic-readiness comparisons Mental-health and addiction stories Equity-focused investigations	🤖 ML & Forecasting Train health-outcome forecasting Build country-clustering features Power public-health dashboards Cross-train with other macro datasets

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🔌 Automating WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Indicators Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows.

🎓 Research and academia Public-health dissertations Reproducible WHO snapshots Course materials Cross-cohort epidemiological studies	🎨 Personal and creative Personal health-data dashboards Side projects on global health Newsletter content Civic-tech visualizations
🤝 Non-profit and civic NGO advocacy and reports Civic transparency dashboards Health-equity research Open-data journalism	🧪 Experimentation Train epidemiological models Prototype health-aware agents Build country-clustering experiments Test viz libraries with real data

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick mode (indicators or observations). For indicators, the Actor lists available codes with optional keyword filter. For observations, it pulls values for a given indicator code, optionally filtered by country or year.

📚 How do I find indicator codes?

Run mode=indicators with a keyword search (e.g. "life expectancy") to discover codes, then run mode=observations with that code.

📊 How many fields per record?

20, including code, name, country, region, year, value, numeric value, low/high bounds, sex, age group (when available).

🌍 What does ISO-3 mean?

Three-letter country code per ISO 3166-1 alpha-3. USA, IND, BRA, DEU, JPN, etc.

📅 How far back does data go?

Varies by indicator. Some go back to 1960, others start in 2000. The yearStart and yearEnd of each observation are returned.

🔁 Can I schedule runs?

Yes. WHO publishes new observations annually (often May for the prior year).

⚖️ Is this data free to use?

Yes. WHO publishes GHO under Creative Commons that permits commercial reuse with attribution.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free plan covers preview runs.

🆘 What if a run fails?

Apify retries transient errors.

📊 Why are some values strings instead of numbers?

Some indicators report formatted strings like ">90%" or "<1.0". numericValue provides the parseable number when one is unambiguously available.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

WHO Global Health Observatory (GHO) Indicators Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications
• Airbyte - Pipe data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits
• Google Drive - Export datasets to Sheets

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the World Health Organization, its member states, or any contributing health authority. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.