The leap from the Gutenberg galaxy into cyberspace

For more than half a century NOMESCO and NOSOSCO have created and published what is meant to be comparable statistics on health and social protection in the Nordic countries. During that time the information technical development in general has been fast and has changed the set of possibilities for the creation and publication of statistics.

What we, both committees, now present is the beginning of a journey that can be described as “the leap from the Gutenberg galaxy into the digital space”. The committees have already given up the production of printed yearbooks and have for some years published these in PDF-format on the homepage.

As of now, 2021, we leave the book format for a variety of other publishing formats. That includes a developed database, a visualization tool and articles. It is our sincere hope that the combination of what can be found on this homepage will help you, the user, to develop your understanding of the areas in which you have an interest.

We invite you to dig into the database and to interact with the visualization tool. Furthermore, in order to get a flavour of how the editorial material might look from now on, you are also invited to read a few articles on different topics the committees have written for this occasion.

The articles are:

The above constitutes the beginning of the journey. Cyberspace gives opportunities for the development of imaginative tools to present and analyse comparable statistics. We are no longer restricted by fixed presentations as when tables and figures were to be printed.

Both committees are now working on getting in place further tools that gives to the user - being a journalist, a researcher, a civil servant or someone from the interested public – the power to get their own questions answered within the area of health and social protection in a Nordic setting. The journey continues.