Straight talk with...Christopher Murray

Hard numbers can be difficult to come by in the current debate about health care in the US. Even rarer are accurate assessments of health care systems in less developed countries. But policy makers are not completely groping in the dark when it comes to data-thanks in part to Christopher Murray. Two years ago, Murray, a physician and health economist with experience at the World Health Organization (WHO), took the helm of the newly created Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Since 2007, the institute, funded largely by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the state of Washington, has grown to a staff of 75 people and has begun churning out studies that that are shaping the debate on health care reform. For instance, Murray's group-along with colleagues at his former base, Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts-have documented huge disparities in life expectancy and mortality in parts of the US. In some pockets of the country, life expectancy for women is even on the decline (PLoS Med. 27, e66; 2008). Murray spoke with Charlotte Schubert about how having accurate numbers can add up to progress in health care.