Background
Global health research can answer many important questions which have direct relevance to people's daily lives. Example topics include health inequality, health policy, health promotion, safety, and disease prevention (MacFarlane et al., 2008). Research on these topics can be found in many different kinds of journals and books, with a range of different methods and themes.
Open data
The World Health Organization provides the Global Health Observatory data repository, which has data on a variety of health indicators, organized into easy-to-navigate topics. You can browse the data by country, category (e.g., Body Mass Index) or by theme (e.g., road safety). When you find a data file you're interested in, you can view and filter it in your web browser, then download either the whole file or the filtered data as a CSV file to open in Microsoft Excel. This database is very large and it may seem overwhelming. You are advised to browse the data while thinking about a research question, then only download 1 or two files that you need to answer that question. You should also use filters to make the data files smaller and easier to manage (e.g., just focus on 1 year, or one country).
Example research questions
What factors are related to the life expectancy worldwide?
Do some countries invest more resources in mental health care than others?
How does tobacco use vary around the world?
References
Macfarlane, S. B., Jacobs, M., & Kaaya, E. E. (2008). In the name of global health: trends in academic institutions. Journal of public health policy, 29(4), 383-401.