Emory University, in partnership with Finland's National Public Health Institute, KTL (Kansanterveyslaitos), has received a five-year grant of nearly $20 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI). http://www.ianphi.org.

IANPHI is an international alliance dedicated to optimizing public health service delivery and decision-making globally by improving public health infrastructure around the world. IANPHI's goals are to strengthen and link national public health institutes (NPHIs), facilitate collaboration and collective action, and build a new international community of public health leadership focused on information sharing, networking and advocacy.

Jeffrey Koplan, MD, MPH, vice president for academic health affairs in Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is IANPHI president and principal investigator for the IANPHI grant. James Hughes, MD, professor of medicine in Emory University School of Medicine 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," explains Dr. Koplan. "A global perspective is important not only in thinking about public health problems, but also in developing and disseminating public health solutions. The Gates Foundation grant will provide concrete tools for improving public health infrastructure and capacity internationally and establishing a global community for public health leadership and advocacy."

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 na
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Contact: Holly Korschun
hkorsch@emory.edu
404-727-3990
Emory University Health Sciences Center
10-Jan-2007