Center for Constitutional Rights. Access: https://ccrjustice.org/.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization established in 1966. It protects civil liberties and human rights through legal action and public outreach. The CCR tackles a wide range of pressing issues and cases, including abusive immigration practices, racial injustice, discriminatory policing, and the persecution of LGBTQI individuals.

The CCR provides a collection of materials for active and historical cases that the legal team has managed or is currently addressing. This includes the high-profile ongoing case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and Palestinian activist, recently detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Each case features a dedicated page with essential information, such as status updates, legal team details, relevant overarching issues, documents, and timelines. Users can search for cases using keywords, filter by specific issues, or browse by date.

The CCR’s website highlights various critical social issues, offering detailed information on significant legal cases, insightful expert commentary from CCR staff, and curated news articles and videos. This rich collection aims to keep users informed and engaged in ongoing conversations on these important topics.

While the CCR produces most of the content, its website provides links to external sources that offer additional perspectives on the CCR’s cases and advocacy efforts, ensuring a well-rounded understanding of the issues at hand. Another engaging section of the website details the organization’s long-standing initiatives, such as the impact of 9/11 and the Open Records Project, which advocates for and educates individuals on using the Freedom of Information Act to challenge oppressive power systems. Additionally, the website features organizational details, annual reports, and opportunities to get involved.

With a user-friendly layout, the website serves as a dynamic hub for information, complete with embedded links and subject tags for easy navigation. However, some instances of social media links are not clearly identified as clickable, which may confuse some users. Furthermore, the website’s accessibility requires improvement, as an automated accessibility checker has identified several errors.

The CCR website is an essential resource that provides detailed information on urgent legal issues and significant cases the advocacy agency is currently addressing. In today’s climate, it is crucial for citizens to stay informed about these matters. The site provides timely updates and empowers individuals to advocate for their communities, seek assistance, and act against injustices they may encounter. — Colleen Lougen, SUNY New Paltz, lougenc@newpaltz.edu

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Access: https://www.healthdata.org/.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a population health research organization based at the University of Washington. Through worldwide collaborations, the goal of IHME is to provide an evidence-based picture of global health trends to inform population health research, policy, and practice. The IHME website is a robust source of information for both learners and experts, including overviews of health topics, country level summaries, published studies, policy reports, public data, and more, all easily browsable through the site’s drop-down menu and links in the website footer, and searchable through the “Research library” link at the top of the page. The information spans disciplines including public health, medicine, public policy, economics, political science, and more.

IHME’s most significant initiative is the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, described as “the most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide.” The GBD provides a wealth of data and publications that can be used to inform improvements to health systems and eliminate global disparities. The GBD landing page provides a summary of program initiatives and links to recent research and data. Full information is organized by key findings, data, and publication links.

The IHME website also features a suite of broader public data sources and user-friendly interactive data comparison and visualization tools, organized under “Data tools and practices.” The nested “Data sources catalog” link connects users to the expansive Global Health Data Exchange catalog, through which datasets are navigable by both simple and advanced searches and browsable by data type, organization, country, and grouped series/systems. The “Interactive data visuals” link features more than 50 user-friendly data visualization tools.

Under the “Research and Analysis” menu, readers can explore health topic summaries and key findings from studies, and can access related datasets, publications, reports, and data visuals via the “Research library” tab linked on each topic page. Other key research and analysis resources include “US health” and “Country profiles,” where users can read summary information, see data visualizations, and link out to location-specific research and data. This menu also links to health policy and planning resources related to health financing, forecasting, and program/policy evaluations, which focus on population health policies rather than health topics and may be particularly useful to professionals and governments. — Amy Jankowski, University of New Mexico, ajankowski@unm.edu