SDMX for Human Health and Population Distribution
SDMX, which stands for Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange is an ISO standard (17369:2013). It is designed to describe statistical data and metadata, to normalise their exchange, and to enable them to be shared more efficiently among organisations. SDMX has three key components: I) a information model to describe data and metadata; II) a standard for automated communication and III) an IT architecture and set of tools for data and metadata exchange
Normative reference as defined in ISO standard, 17369:2013
Current technical specification of SDMX 2.1 – Consolidated Version 2013
Paper + presentation at the Joint UNECE/UNGGIM Europe Workshop on Integrating Geospatial and Statistical Standards:
Statistical data are stored in a structured harmonized approach. Code list are stored in dedicated registries. By using SDMX data directly for INSPIRE several advantages are achieved: e.g. usage of semantically harmonized data, storing and updating data only once and leaving data at its source avoidance of duplication of transformation, synchronization issues across datasets, publishing machine to machine readable data.
Reuse already existing statistical data provided in SDMX (ISO 17369:2013).
Several reference implementations of SDMX are available for usage are available. Official sponsors and users of SDMX are the following organisations: Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Union); Bank for International Settlements (BIS); Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); European Central Bank (ECB); International Monetary Fund (IMF); United Nations (UN) and The World Bank Group (WB).
- A document describing (some of) the existing implementations is available.
- A summary document with examples of running SDMX endpoints for different domains in production at the European Union Level.
- Eurostat maintains a series of endpoints for SDMX with the SOAP and REST protocol.
- Member states distributed data not only for human health and population distribution but also for a variety of domains
- Commercial and open source implementations are available.
- Statistical Office in Finland, Slovenia and Netherlands ( Geonovum) use it already for data dissemination and visualization in different software frameworks (e.g. oskari.org, Stage, Geoserver TJS extension).
Any organization providing data using SDMX must map their internal data structure into the SDMX information model.