African Health Initiative

DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) launched the African Health Initiative to catalyze significant advances in strengthening health systems by supporting collaborative partnerships that design, implement and evaluate large-scale models of care. These models linked implementation research and workforce training directly to the delivery of integrated primary healthcare in select countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2009, DDCF awarded five grants to support Population Health Implementation & Training (PHIT) Partnerships in Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. Research conducted by each PHIT Partnership is measuring the impact of the interventions on improving health systems performance and reducing child mortality and other health outcomes. 

Accordingly, the Partnerships participated in a Data Collaborative to promote cross-site sharing and global learning. The Data Collaborative was led by a central coordinating body referred to as the Data Coordinator. The Data Coordinator served as a technical resource to the Partnerships, ensuring that each collected a set of comparable measures, or “core metrics.” The Data Coordinator also worked towards facilitating public access to data; helped identify lessons learned across the Partnerships; promoted the communication of research findings to the wider community; and when appropriate, coordinated PHIT Partnership data collection and analysis with efforts supported by other organizations. A team led by Dr. Robert Black and Dr. Jennifer Bryce at the Institute for International Programs (IIP) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health served as the Data Coordinator.