SEATTLE – The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) received a Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award today at the 2011 Esri International User Conference in San Diego. The award recognizes IHME's development of its GIS tool, which maps global health indicators and trends in mortality, disease, health financing, and other factors across countries and animates the trends over time. IHME was one of the recipients selected from a pool of more than 300,000 organizations worldwide.
"Being recognized by Esri, the global pioneer in digital mapping, is a great honor," said Peter Speyer, IHME's Director of Data Development, who accepted the award in San Diego. "Our GIS tool has proven to be extremely popular with researchers and with the public because it brings health data to life. We're glad Esri saw the value of the tool, too."
IHME "received this honor for their vision, leadership, hard work, and innovative use of Esri's geographic information system (GIS) technology," Esri announced in a press release.
"The SAG Awards highlight extraordinary achievements of Esri software users to improve our world," Esri president Jack Dangermond said. "It's a tradition that has gained great meaning and importance for professionals in the GIS industry."
For more information about the 2011 Special Achievement in GIS Award winners, including project information and photos, you can visit www.esri.com/sag. To explore IHME's GIS tool, visit www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/tools.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global research center at the University of Washington providing sound measurement of population health and the factors that determine health, as well as rigorous evaluation of health system and health program performance. The Institute's goal is to improve population health by providing the best evidence possible to guide health policy – and by making that evidence easily accessible to decision-makers as they strategically fund, design, and implement programs to improve health outcomes worldwide. IHME was created in 2007 through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the state of Washington. For more information, please visit: http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org
Media contact:
William Heisel
(206) 897-2886; cell: 206-612-0739
wheisel@uw.edu