B.R.I.D.G.E TO DATA Center for Health Research and Education, Inc.

B.R.I.D.G.E TO DATA is a non-profit organization whose mission is to develop information and resources for the health care sector.

B.R.I.D.G.E TO DATA was chartered in 1995 as a separate non-profit company in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The organization complements The Degge Group, Ltd., from whom it contracts for space, personnel and administrative services.

In 1995, B.R.I.D.G.E TO DATA and original editor, Dr. Judith K. Jones, received the responsibility of continuing the International Drug Benefit-Risk Handbooks upon cessation of activities by the International Medical Benefit­Risk Foundation (IMBRF) in Geneva.  The handbooks were initially developed as part of the Risk Assessment of Drugs­Analysis & Response (RAD-AR) international project initially started by Ciba Geigy International and later ceded to IMBRF.

These volumes, describing epidemiological data resources around the world, were originally developed in the late 1980s to:

• Provide and information resource for research and decisions on drug risk and benefit
• Set the stage for networking of database researchers
• Foster evolution of higher quality, internationally standardized population databases

The original data resources are short, structured monograph-outlines of information that describe the characteristics of a variety of databases that can be utilized to estimate exposure and/or risk of drugs.

The new on-line format, found at www.dgiinc.org, is an edited and updated version of the original, supplemented by additional resources that have now become available.  Also included are databases with information on cost data for pharmacoeconomic studies.

Additionally, the site offers links to useful and relevant regulatory, governmental, and other valuable Internet resources. The web-site is intended to be dynamic, constantly being updated and amended as new information becomes available and old information becomes outdated.