Until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, most studies involving disease patterns of the Jewish people were gathered in the United States as well as in Europe before the destruction of the Jewish people. In the closing years of the 20th century, the vast majority of information on diseases patterns of Jews is derived from Israel which provides demographers and epidemiologists with the unique opportunity to investigate differences among large numbers of Jews from throughout the world. A considerable amount of data are extant in the medical literature on this topic derived from Jews residing in the United States, about 95 percent of whom are of Ashkenazic origin. This valuable literature, is scattered widely in scientific journals, books, government documents, academic dissertations and reports. The Lindex project is an attempt to organize and render this valuable body of information accessible to scholars as well as the lay community.

The author responded to this challenge during the mid 1970's by beginning to develop a concept of a flexible data base to be used as a source document of ethnic studies, specifically related to health and disease. The data base currently incorporates works published over the last 126 years and emphasizes Ashkenazic Jews residing in the United States and Canada. It includes in addition, medical accounts derived from several hundred sources encompassing more than 350 discrete diseases. The database in printed form to date amounts to several thousand pages.

As modern computing came of age, it became obvious that the power of the computer could be gainfully employed to important advantage to develop not only a database, but the methodology for a more generalized approach for various studies of this type. Rapidly developing software for microcomputers made possible more sophisticated approaches to generic development as well as generic approaches to analyses. Just as important, it also allowed for full explication of the source data. The result is what is known as the Lindex which in turn consists of two major components, the MicroLindex and another, the MacroLindex, both which are linked by a common Lindex number.