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January 16 , 2007
Gates Foundation awards $20M for public health

By Holly Korschun

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded Emory a five-year grant of nearly $20 million to build an international community of “CDCs.” Emory will work in partnership with Finland’s National Public Health Institute, KTL, on the project.

Emory and KTL will support the International Association of National Public Health Institutes, an international alliance dedicated to improving the health of populations by creating and strengthening national public health institutes.

Jeffrey Koplan, Emory vice president for academic health affairs and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is IANPHI president and principal investigator for the IANPHI grant. James Hughes, Emory professor of medicine and public health and former director of the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, is IANPHI senior advisor for infectious diseases.

“In our increasingly interconnected society, the public health issues of one country can quickly affect the entire world,” explained Koplan. “A global perspective is important not only in thinking about public health problems, but also in developing and disseminating public health solutions.”

The cornerstone of the IANPHI approach is a peer-assistance model for strengthening and enhancing national public health institutes, with an emphasis on low-resource countries without a national public health focus or with NPHIs in early stages of development. Expertise and support from IANPHI will help fledgling organizations build basic public health infrastructure and progress toward becoming fully functioning NPHIs.

IANPHI was formally launched in January 2006 with 39 founding members and a one-year planning grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With this five-year implementation grant, the members will continue to expand the association and implement their shared vision of an integrated global network of strong and capable NPHIs taking action to address critical public health challenges.

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