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Saloni Dattani makes the case that data collection isn’t just an academic concern; it’s crucial for policymaking, journalism, and industry, and, in some cases, a matter of life or death.Data collection has changed our understanding of diseases like cholera, tuberculosis and snakebite envenoming; and has been crucial in tracking progress over time and identifying emerging problems.In this talk, Saloni focuses on key global health datasets and how they've helped us grasp the scale, distribution, and changes in disease burden. It will also discuss some of the risks posed by recent funding cuts.Saloni Dattani is a writer, editor, and researcher focused on health, medicine, and meta-science. She is a researcher at Our World in Data, where she writes about trends in global health and the data behind them. She is also a co-founder of Works in Progress, a magazine that explores ideas for improving the world.