Reference Data Archive

The reference data archive (RDA) is a publicly accessible data archive and analytics infrastructure for mortality data. It is launching with verbal autopsy reference deaths that have a trustworthy reference cause, verbal autopsy, and additional useful information – for example, minimally invasive tissue sample (MITS) pathology results.

Tutorials

Analytics Environment

Data Repository

What is it designed to do?

  • The RDA is a publicly accessible, browsable, searchable metadata archive for mortality data, including verbal autopsy reference deaths.
  • The RDA is a publicly accessible repository for datasets related to mortality. For example, a dataset describing individual-level deaths, or a symptom-cause information (SCI) dataset derived from verbal autopsy reference deaths that is necessary for automated cause-coding algorithms for verbal autopsy.
  • The RDA is a vetted-access, trusted researcher analytics environment in which users can have full access to sensitive data and conduct detailed analyses.
  • The RDA provides a controlled access environment to disseminate fully documented datasets produced by researchers in the trusted researcher analytics environment.

What reference deaths are included at launch?

  • When it launches, the RDA will include verbal autopsy reference deaths from the mortality surveillance system in the city of São Paulo in Brazil – in Portuguese: Serviço de Vigilância de Óbito (SVO).
  • Over time, new sources of mortality data and verbal autopsy reference deaths will be incorporated. Likely new sources of verbal autopsy reference deaths include research sites that are part of the MITS Alliance and countries that are adopting verbal autopsy at scale as part of vital statistics strengthening programs.
  • As the RDA grows, the full collection of verbal autopsy reference deaths will progressively better represent deaths in a variety of epidemiological settings and through time.

What additional mortality data is likely to be included in the RDA?

  • Cause-of-death data stored in various ways at WHO will likely migrate to the RDA after it launches.
  • Other more general mortality data stored at WHO may also migrate to RDA after it launches.


How do I access the RDA?

The RDA is composed of two separate components:

  1. A publicly accessible, browsable, searchable data repository and metadata catalogue for:
    1. all metadata describing the raw - potentially sensitive - data available in the RDA trusted researcher environment, including the verbal autopsy reference deaths, and all data products derived from the raw data, and
    2. all datasets in the data repository derived from the raw data - potentially including individual-level data when a data contributor provides permission to share at that level.
  2. A secure, vetted-access trusted researcher analytics environment that
    1. contains the raw data, including verbal autopsy reference deaths,
    2. allows researchers to manipulate, analyze, and produce new aggregate (not individual level) datasets from the raw data, and
    3. provides tools to create fully documented datasets that can be shared using the RDA data repository.

 

Access to the RDA data repository

The data repository is visible at https://extranet.who.int/rda/nada.
Anyone can visit this URL and browse or search the metadata describing the raw data, including verbal autopsy reference deaths, and the aggregate datasets shared as part of the repository. To download a dataset, a user must have an ORCID (https://orcid.org), sign in using their ORCID, agree to the data use agreement and request access to the dataset, and finally, download the dataset.

 

Access to the RDA trusted researcher analytics environment

The trusted researcher analytics environment is visible at https://extranet.who.int/rda/jupyterh.
To gain access and the ability to analyze the raw data, including verbal autopsy reference deaths, a prospective user must send an email to assistance-RDA@who.int that provides their ORCID (see: https://orcid.org) and a brief description of what they would like to do with the reference deaths.  The application will be reviewed by an RDA administrator to verify that the user is a scientist, researcher, or other analyst with an acceptable plan to analyze the raw reference deaths. When approved, the user will be able to sign in to the trusted researcher analytics environment using their ORCID.

Cite the RDA or a dataset from the RDA

When you publish something that utilizes a dataset from the RDA, you need to cite both the RDA itself and the specific dataset used in your publication. Each dataset has a unique digital object identifier (DOI, see https://www.doi.org) that is part of the citation and will allow readers to locate and download the relevant dataset.

Citation for the RDA itself

Template for citing the RDA:


Samuel J. Clark, Doris Ma Fat, Kobus Herbst, Yue Chu, Brendan Gilbert, Philippe Boucher, Jason Thomas, Dan-George Vasilache, David Plotner, Norman Goco, Mona Sharan, Joven Larin. “WHO Reference Data Repository”. 2026. https://data.who.int/rda. Accessed <YYYY-MM-DD>.

Where ‘YYYY’ is a four-digit year, ‘MM’ is a two-digit month, and ‘DD’ is a two-digit day.

RDA dataset citation

Each dataset in the RDA has a data documentation initiative (DDI, see https://ddialliance.org) element containing the citation to the dataset and the permanent DOI for the dataset. All dataset citations should follow this template:

<first name 1> <last name 1>, … <first name N> <last name N>. <YYYY>. “<dataset title>”, WHO Reference Data Repository, V<v>.  DOI: https://dx.doi.org/<doi>. Accessed <YYYY-MM-DD>.

Where the names are authors, ‘YYYY’ is a four-digit year, ‘MM’ is a two-digit month, ‘DD’ is a two-digit day, ‘v’ is the dataset version number, and ‘doi’ is the full digital object identifier (DOI) prefix/suffix.

 

Where is the RDA?

The RDA is located and managed at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

Who manages the RDA?

The RDA is jointly managed by the openVA Team led from The Ohio State University and the Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI Department (DDA) of the WHO. The Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in South Africa provides technical support.

Who supports the RDA?

The Gates Foundation provided the funding necessary to create the RDA and the funding necessary to maintain it until now.

 

How to join the RDA as a data contributor

To join the RDA as a data contributor, indicate your interest by sending an email to assistance-RDA@who.int.

The process involves the following steps:

  1. Agree to and sign the WHO RDA Participation Agreement. This is a data use agreement that specifies the responsibilities of both WHO and you and records both party’s agreement to those terms. As part of this you will need to:
    1. decide if you want to share individual-level data
    2. if sharing individual-level data, decide if a data use agreement is required for those who want to use the individual-level data
    3. if needed, supply the requirements for the individual-level data use agreement
  2. Work with the RDA Team to create and save a ‘data ingestion’ package for your data. This involves:
    1. defining the data, metadata, and paradata that will be included
    2. evaluating the data for general structure, volume, etc.
    3. defining data quality and consistency checks
    4. defining data recoding, reshaping, etc. necessary to ingest your data into the RDA
    5. fixing any data issues identified during the process

      The ingestion package will be saved so that it can be rerun in an automated fashion for future data deposits.

  3. Ingest the first batch of data.
  4. Decide on a frequency and process to submit regular updates to your data.

Contact, help, or additional information about the RDA

For further information about RDA, please contact assistance-RDA@who.int