CDC WONDER - A COMPREHENSIVE ONLINE PUBLIC-HEALTH INFORMATION-SYSTEM OF THE CENTERS-FOR-DISEASE-CONTROL-AND-PREVENTION

Objectives. CDC WONDER, a comprehensive on-line public health informat ion system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wa s developed to place timely, action-oriented information in the hands of public health professionals. Methods. A unified system was develope d de novo to be used for and to evolve along with public health. All d ata are stored and updated on the CDC mainframe.Results. CDC WONDER pr ovides menu-driven access to 24 databases with information on mortalit y, hospital discharges, cancer incidence, notifiable diseases, acquire d immunodeficiency syndrome, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , etc.; each database has on-line documentation. Results can be tabula ted and graphed, and there is full-text searching of textual databases . Non-CDC staff have access via telephone connection. From August 1991 through June 1992, system databases were accessed 10 698 times, and t here were 842 users (mean of 97 new users per month). Conclusions. CDC WONDER has shown that it is possible to build a large, on-line databa se of scientific data for public health professionals. CDC WONDER prov ides a common foundation from which to build information-based public health plans and policy and could help strengthen the public health sy stem.