Non-governmental health statistics on the World Wide Web

Health statistics are an important decision-making resource for professionals and consumers alike. Professional use of statistics is wide ranging and often includes legislative decision making, medical research, grant writing, and population analysis. Locating needed or even helpful statistics to make these decisions or analyses can seem overwhelming. Organizations advocating for the treatment or assessment for particular diseases and health conditions are a prime resource for needed statistics. This column describes links and provides summaries to organizations that offer statistical resources for many of the leading causes of disability and death; it is the second of two columns devoted to finding health statistics on the Web. A helpful search strategy is presented which includes the utilization of evaluative criteria to seek legitimate and credible information.