The CARE-CDC Health Initiative

The CARE-CDC Health Initiative (CCHI) is a partnership between CARE and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The partnership builds on collective organizational strengths to achieve effective and lasting results in global health.

Since 1997, CCHI has supported more than a dozen health interventions in Africa, Central and South America. These interventions cover a broad range of topics such as environmental health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS prevention, eradication and treatment of infectious diseases and promotion of safe drinking water, public health management and community empowerment.

The collaborations are field-initiated and intended to strengthen public health infrastructure at the local level. The initiative disseminates lessons learned to other CARE country offices, as well as other non-governmental and governmental organizations. CCHI has provided unique training and leadership opportunities for CARE national staff and valuable program and community participatory experiences for CDC staff. Several of these projects have already resulted in important global health outcomes. For example:

• In South Sudan, CCHI supported a multi-partnered collaboration with CARE South Sudan, CDC and the International Medical Corps. Their efforts resulted in decreased incidence of Sleeping Sickness in Tambura County to below epidemic levels. The project estimates that controlling this epidemic prevented at least 25,000 fatal infections. The cost-effectiveness of the control program was found to be comparable or superior to management of other common infections (e.g., malaria, acute respiratory infection).
• The Safe Water System in western Kenya and Madagascar reduced diarrheal disease morbidity and disability in sites where was introduced. In Madagascar, the Sur'Eau (safe water) project grew from a neighborhood to a nationwide intervention. A recent case control study conducted during a cholera outbreak in Fort Dauphin suggests that the Sur'Eau intervention reduced the risk of contracting cholera by 90 percent. In Kenya, preliminary analysis indicates the risk of diarrhea in children less than 5 years old living in households using the intervention was 58 percent lower than in children living in households using traditional water treatment and storage methods.
• The CCHI sponsored collaboration between CARE Peru and CDC's National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) created community environmental health capacity capable of implementing quick and effective solutions to a variety of environmental health problems. Over a two-year period, CDC and CARE Peru translated these skills into effective environmental health interventions. CDC's NCEH provided CARE Peru staff with the technical expertise needed to develop an effective environmental health program. As a result of their demonstrated success, the US Agency for International Development recently gave CARE Peru a $2.5 million award to continue and expand their environmental health program.

Through CCHI, high quality scientific and technical expertise has been made available to CARE headquarters and CARE field staff. CCHI has enabled the implementation of cutting edge research, which enhances the technical capacity of CARE field staff and benefits local constituencies. An underlying tenet of CCHI is the belief that global assistance is more effective when investments in professional development become part and parcel of the intervention. Accordingly, CCHI has built in "professional access" opportunities for CARE field staff involved in CCHI projects. Through CCHI, CARE field staff has become directly involved in authoring scientific manuscripts and has presented at international scientific meetings. Articles from CCHI collaborations are published in the American Journal of Public Health (October 2001).