The National Population Health Data Center (NPHDC) is one of the 20 National Scientific Data Centers recognized by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance, belongs to the Science and Technology Resource Sharing Service Platform under the National Science and Technology Basic Condition Platform. NPHDC undertakes the tasks of collection, review, processing, storage, mining, certification and sharing service of scientific data in the field of population health, such as major national science and technology projects, science and technology plans, and major public welfare projects, and ensures the long-term preservation and continuous management of population health scientific data.

The National Population Health Data Center was established in 2003 as a major scientific data sharing project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. It was officially launched in April 2004. In 2010, it was recognized by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance as an operational service, which is open to the whole society, and provides data resource support and sharing services. After more than 10 years of development, it has integrated scientific data resources related to basic medicine, clinical medicine, pharmacy, public health, traditional Chinese medicine, population and reproductive health, and has also established 16 special topical services, such as rural three-level medical and health special service, national physique and health special service, international tumor translational medicine special service, early warning and tracking of hot spot infectious diseases special service, etc., providing users with a comprehensive and three-dimensional sharing services, providing support for national scientific and technological innovation, government management decision-making, the development of medical and health undertakings, innovative personnel training and health industry development.

1. Construction goals

The National Population Health Data Center will be established as the designated collection and delivery center for scientific data in the field of population health in China, which will reach the level of a domestic leading, world-class, authoritative and high-quality scientific data center. NPHDC undertakes the tasks of scientific data collection, data processing, data storage, data mining, and data sharing services in the field of population health, such as major national science and technology projects, science and technology plans, and major public welfare projects, and achieve the overall goal of "using scientific data on population and health to serve healthy China and benefit people’ lives ".

2. Construction planning

According to the construction goals of the National Population Health Data Center, it will be implemented in two stages:

First of all, it takes 3 to 5 years to complete unified standards, unified resource planning, and unified technical framework to achieve "logically highly unified, open and shared; physically reasonably distributed, and division of labor and cooperation". NPHDC will complete the collection, processing, summarizing and exchange of various medical data, complete metadata standards, data standards, data classification standards and data labeling standards, complete data transmission and exchange standards, complete interoperable architecture standards, complete safety certification standards, etc., so as to become a leading domestic, world-class and high-quality population health data center.

It will take another 2 to 3 years for data collation and data mining to form a national population and health big data center covering the whole medical and health industry, which will serve scientific and technological innovation, government management decision-making, and the development of medical and health undertakings, and provide scientific data sharing services for innovative personnel training and health industry development, so as to improve the overall level of China's medical and health services and international competitiveness.