The CHBD was initially constructed with records from the Arctic Institute of North America's database. These were mainly northern Canadian records. It is expected to take several years to add non-Canadian records to the CHBD.[2] The Circumpolar Health Observatory, proposed in May 2008 in Norway, would disseminate its data through the CHBD.[5]
Funding for the database increased by 50% for the period of 2008-2009.[6]