» Frequently asked questions

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General questions

Where is CE-DAT located?

The Complex Emergency Database (CE-DAT) is located within the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in the School of Public Health at the Universite catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium.

Who funds CE-DAT?

The UK Department for International Development (DfID) and U.S. Department of State- Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (State/PRM)

How can I be kept informed of CE-DAT news?

CE-DAT has a quarterly newsletter called CE-DAT Scene that is posted to the CE-DAT website. You can subscribe to this newsletter by using the CE-DAT contact form. CE-DAT also maintains a news section on its website that can be subscribed to by RSS. There is also an upcoming events section on the CE-DAT meetings page.

What does CE-DAT mean by surveys?

Surveys in CE-DAT refer to anthropometric nutrition and/or mortality surveys conducted amongst complex emergency populations. For more information on how CE-DAT selects and enters surveys, please visit the guidelines section of the CE-DAT website.

What are indicators?

Indicators are data types that provide information about the health status of a complex emergency affected population.

What is the difference between a CE-DAT network partner and a CE-DAT registered user?

Network partners are members of CE-DAT partner organizations that engage in data sharing, participate in technical advisory or expert group meetings, or have signed memoranda of understanding with CE-DAT.

Registered users recieve important notifications from the CE-DAT team and represent an intermediate step before full network partner status.

What kind of research does the CE-DAT team do?

In general terms, the CE-DAT team researches health situations in complex emergency zones. The CE-DAT team’s research tends to focus on the humanitarian and acute phases of complex emergencies. This is because CE-DAT data focus generally lies in this area. You can see examples of CE-DAT research here. The CE-DAT team also does some short-term research specially catered to our network members or in cooperation with collaborating partners.

What is the search engine designed for?

The search engine is designed to search all pages and documents on the CE-DAT website.

How do I cite CE-DAT in a publication?

If you would like to cite CE-DAT in a publication, please use the following citation: "CE-DAT: The Complex Emergency Database, www.cedat.org. Centre for research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), Université catholique de Louvain - Brussels, Belgium."

How-to

How do I use the web-based interface for CE-DAT?

A brief walk-through with basic instructions is included in the help section of the CE-DAT website. You can read more about it here.

What information are you showing in the database summary box?

This tool provides summary information from CE-DAT for each country in the database. You can read more about it here.

What information are you showing in the database maps?

This tool allows you to visualize and access CE-DAT data that has been collected by our partners in the field. Each icon on the map represents a conflict-affected population whose health status was surveyed or monitored. You can read more about it here.

What information are you showing in the chart (i.e. complex emergency monitor)?

The Complex Emergency Monitor is set up as a diagnostic tool using mortality data to illustrate the nature and severity of complex emergencies being reported from the field. You can read more about it here.

What information are you showing in the timeline?

CE-DAT’s timeline feature allows users to visualize data by country chronologically. The application lists health indicators as bars for data that represent time averages and points for data that represent point estimates. You can read more about it here.

What kinds of indicators does CE-DAT collect?

CE-DAT records the following indicators:

Type

Age group

Indicators

Nutrition

6-59 months

GAM (%Z), SAM (%Z), GAM (%M), SAM (%M), MUAC (%), Global Chronic Malnutrition (%Z), Global Underweight (%Z), Oedema (%)

Mortality

0-59 months; all ages

U5MR (/10,000/day); CMR (/10,000/day)

Vaccination

9-59 months; 6-59 months

MCV (%); BCG (%), DTP (%), Pol (%)

Calculated using the NCHS (1973) reference population.

How do I find out what GAM, SAM, and other indicators mean?

CE-DAT has a glossary with brief and extended definitions of technical terms. Common and complex terms are sometimes accompanied by explanatory notes in the documents section of the CE-DAT website.

How does CE-DAT disaggregate its data?

Data is disaggregated geographically, but not by sex, age, ethnic group, conflict theatre, livelihood zone, etc. as the data is restricted by the format that it is received in.

How can I access survey reports?

Survey reports can be accessed online only by CE-DAT network partners. Non-network partners must contact CE-DAT directly.

How can I get more details about the surveys done? Such as methodology, aim, etc

CE-DAT’s publicly available data is necessarily limited for logistical reasons, however CE-DAT maintains a library of hard copy documents for all surveys in the database at its university offices.

How can I get indicators other than CMR, GAM and U5MR?

The CE-DAT database provides CMR, GAM, U5MR, SAM, and MCV data for the most recent survey in each geo-referenced survey location. At this time CE-DAT data is relatively limited for other indicators.

I cannot correctly visualize the new database interface, what are the requirements?

We have tested the components of our website in all major browsers to guarantee a broad accessibility to the CE-DAT information. Whenever it is possible, please use the latest version of your preferred browser to guaranty maximum compatibility (and to browse securely).

In case you detect any problem please do not hesitate to contact us. Please provide all the information you may consider useful, such as screenshots and error messages.

Technical questions

What technologies are you using in your web interface?

All the components of our website are developed using open standards.

We are using Google Maps and Google Earth to represent our georeferenced information (the whole CE-DAT database is georeferenced), using a tailor-made KML provider.

The charts are dynamically generated using the Google Charts project.

The timeline is a component developed by the SMILE project at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The website is powered by Drupal, a Free Software Content Management System (CMS).

All these components are carefully glued together using in-house developed code supported by the W3C recommendations (XHTML, HTML, CSS). The client-side part is using AJAX (Javascript, JSON and asynchronous requests). The server-side working language is PHP, and the data is stored in MySQL databases.

What is KML?

KML is the language we are using to export all our georeferenced information. You can read more about it here.

What is RSS?

RSS is a standard format for syndication of information on the web. You can read more about it here.

Other

I have another question not answered here, what do I do?

Please, use our contact form choosing the adequate category. We will respond to your comment as soon as possible.

 
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