Wide-ranging OnLine Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), a CDC Internet system, was created to speed up and simplify access to public health information. WONDER allows users to search for and read published documents on public health concerns, including reports, recommendations and guidelines, articles, and statistical research data. Users also can query numeric data sets on CDC's mainframe and other computers via "fill-in-the blank" web pages. Public-use data sets about mortality, cancer incidence, HIV and AIDS, behavioral risk factors, diabetes, births, census data, and many other topics are available for query, and the requested data are readily summarized and analyzed.

The data is ready for use in desktop applications such as word processors, spreadsheet programs, or statistical and geographic analysis packages. File formats available include plain text (ASCII), web pages (HTML), and spreadsheet files (Comma or Tab Separated Values). All of these facilities are menu-driven, and require no special computer expertise.

WONDER provides three ways to find information:

• Descriptive titles are categorized under topic and headings.
• The alphabetical index includes the descriptive title, the official name and the acronym for each data item.
• The "Search" feature finds pages that contain a specific word or phrase.

There are seven major topics:

• Chronic Diseases
• Communicable Diseases
• Environmental Health
• Health Practice and Prevention
• Injury Prevention
• Occupational Health
• Reference Data

Each of the topics has subcategories, such as "deaths," "disease," "health promotion," and "exposure." These subcategories have lists of links leading to articles, databases, fact sheets, and more.