UN Millennium Development Goals e-learning materials

Discover the sources behind the data

Data has very little value unless you understand the source of that data - in this activity you will research MDG indicator 6.1 HIV prevalence among population aged 15-24 years to establish the exact source for that data.

Step 1: Select the Indicator

Go to the UN's Official MDG Indicators website at http://mdgs.un.org/ and click on the Data > Metadata drop down menu.

You will see each of the 8 MDG Goals displayed in a folder view. You will need to expand the folder labelled Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, then expand folder labelled Target 6.A. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

You will see a list of all indicators relating to this target. Highlight the indicator 'People living with HIV, 15-49 years old, percentage.

Step 2: View metadata

Click on the View metadata button shown on the right hand side of the screen. A very detailed document will then be displayed which includes the following information:

• Contact point in international agency
• Definition
• Method of commutation
• Comments and limitations
• Sources of discrepancies between global and national figures
• Process of obtaining data
• Treatment of missing values
• Data availability
• Regional and Global estimates
• Expected time of release

Scroll down the series metadata view to the Method of Computation heading to discover that for this indicator the 'UNAIDS and WHO, in close consultation with countries, developed a methodology to obtain national estimates of HIV prevalence for men and women. Different approaches are used for generalized epidemics (where adult HIV prevalence exceeds 1% and transmission is mostly heterosexual) and low-level or concentrated epidemics (where HIV is concentrated in groups with behaviours that expose them to a high risk of HIV infection)...' and under the Regional and Global Estimates heading - you can see where to find further information on the epidemiological tool used to produce the estimates - described in the following website: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/Epidemiology/epi_software2007.asp.

Step 3: Further Reading

Now go to the publication Indicators for monitoring the MDGs to read about complete and authoritative information on the concepts, definitions, implementation and sources of data for the official MDG indicators. For each indicator this handbook provides a simple operational definition, the rationale for the indicators selection, the method of computation, sources of data, references including Internet sites for data and methodologies, limitations and notes on gender issues and national and international agencies concerned with each topic.