Aihw MCP server

aihw-mcp

mcp-name: io.ausdata/aihw-mcp

MCP server for Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics. Plain-English access to long-term mortality (GRIM), regional mortality (MORT), cancer incidence and mortality (ACIM), national health expenditure, youth justice detention, and the public hospitals register — all from a single uvx command.

Hosted access? For cross-source queries, webhooks, an always-on REST API, and a uniform response envelope across all 9 sources, see ausdata.io — free tier available (500 calls/mo, no card).

"How have diabetes deaths changed since 1980?"
"What's the age-standardised mortality rate in the Sydney - Inner West SA3?"
"Show me breast cancer incidence in women aged 50–54 over time."
"How much did Australia spend on public hospitals in 2022-23?"
"How many young people are in detention in NSW vs VIC?"
"List all Principal referral hospitals in Queensland."
"Top 5 causes of death in 2023."

Sister to abs-mcp (Australian Bureau of Statistics), rba-mcp (Reserve Bank of Australia), ato-mcp (Australian Taxation Office), and au-weather-mcp (Australian weather). The five together cover the macro / regulator / tax / health / climate layer of Australian official data.

Install

# Run on demand via uvx (recommended)
uvx --upgrade aihw-mcp

# Or install permanently
pip install aihw-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to claudedesktopconfig.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aihw": { "command": "uvx", "args": ["--upgrade", "aihw-mcp"] }
  }
}

Why --upgrade? uvx aihw-mcp (without the flag) uses whatever wheel is cached and never adopts new PyPI releases on its own. --upgrade makes uvx check PyPI on each launch and pull a newer release if one exists. To verify which version is currently serving you, look at the server_version field on any DataResponse.

Claude Code / Cursor

claude mcp add aihw --command uvx --args -- --upgrade aihw-mcp

Auto-updating data

Beyond the wheel-level --upgrade, the server has a second auto-update path inside the data layer: when AIHW refreshes GRIM with another year of deaths data or publishes a new MORT release, aihw-mcp resolves the new resource URL via data.gov.au's CKAN API at fetch time and uses the freshest match. Hard-coded YAML URLs are the safe fallback if discovery fails. You do not need to wait for a new wheel release to get new yearly data — just delete ~/.aihw-mcp/cache.db to force a refresh, or wait for the 7-day TTL to expire.

What it exposes

Six tools, all plain-English in, structured out:

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.