WHO GHO — World Health Organization Global Health Observatory

The World Health Organization's GHO database. ~3,000 health-related indicators across 194 member states: mortality, disease prevalence, healthcare workforce, immunization, environmental health, NCDs, communicable diseases, demographics. The canonical international health-data source. Free, no auth.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1394+ live data sources.

Why this matters for AI agents

For international comparisons of health indicators or country-level public-health snapshots, WHO GHO is the source. Where CDC is US-focused, WHO is global. Pair with World Bank (development indicators) and IMF (macro) for full country-level analysis.

Common flows:

• Country indicator. "Life expectancy in Brazil?" → indicator + country query.

• Cross-country comparison. Same indicator across multiple countries.

• Time series. Indicator over years for trend analysis.

• Indicator browse. "What does WHO publish on diabetes?" → search the indicator catalog.

Related MCP server: mcp-uk-ons

Auth

None. WHO GHO is fully public, free.

Indicator categories

Major categories (each with dozens to hundreds of indicators):

• Mortality and life expectancy

• Communicable diseases (HIV, TB, malaria, COVID-19, vaccine-preventable)

• Non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, diabetes, mental health)

• Maternal and child health

• Health workforce (physicians, nurses, beds per 1000)

• Environmental health (air pollution, water/sanitation access)

• Health systems financing

• Risk factors (tobacco, alcohol, BMI, blood pressure)

Common pitfalls

• Country reporting quality varies. Wealthy countries report comprehensively; lower-income countries have data gaps and longer lags. Some indicators are WHO-modeled estimates filling country reporting gaps.

• Disaggregation availability. "Indicator X for country Y" may not break down by sex, age, or urban/rural. Check whether the disaggregation you want exists before building queries that depend on it.

• Definition shifts. WHO occasionally revises indicator methodology (e.g., changing definition of "stunting" cut-points). Long time series across methodology changes need annotation.

• Lag. Most WHO data lags 1-3 years. Recent year may have only modeled estimates. For real-time outbreak data, use WHO's separate disease-surveillance feeds.

• Country naming. WHO uses ISO 3-letter codes. Some politically-disputed entities (Taiwan, Palestine, Kosovo) have inconsistent treatment in headline data; check coverage explicitly.

• Population denominator. Per-capita rates are usually computed against UN population estimates. Different sources (UN vs. national stats) can differ slightly, especially for fast-growing populations.

• WHO regions. WHO groups countries into 6 regions (Africa, Americas, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Southeast Asia, Western Pacific). These don't match World Bank or other regional groupings.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "who-gho": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/who-gho/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway for access to all 1394+ data sources:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pipeworx": {
      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Who Gho data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides

• pipeworx.io

License

MIT