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Working with Partners
To Improve Global Health:
A Strategy for CDC and ATSDR

In today’s world of increasing globalization, the United States continually faces new challenges and opportunities in public health. In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have prepared a Global Health Strategy. The rationale for CDC/ATSDR’s institutional commitment recognizes a) the increasing influence of determinants arising outside the country on US health; b) the mutual benefits of improving the health of other countries; c) the advantages of sharing US knowledge and public health expertise with international partners; and d) the need to respond to the health consequences of international emergencies. In addition, past and ongoing international work by CDC has provided a strong foundation on which to base its international initiatives.

The CDC Global Health Strategy defines goals in the following five critical areas of public health:

 

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Public Health Surveillance and Response
-- To strengthen global capacity to detect, investigate, and monitor disease and injury, as well as their causes, and to respond appropriately to problems as they are identified.

Public Health Infrastructure and Capacity Building -- To work with countries to establish and maintain effective public health systems, including trained workforces and collection and use of essential information for effective public health policies and programs.

Disease and Injury Prevention and Control -- To collaborate with countries and other international partners in developing, implementing, and evaluating prevention and control strategies to address important public health problems.

Applied Research for Effective Health Policies
-- To assist countries and other global partners to conduct applied research that will provide new information needed to improve the effectiveness of global public health policies and programs.

Exchange of Information and Lessons Learned -- To promote the free flow of accurate technical information on global health problems and to share lessons learned in their control and prevention.

The implementation of this strategy is founded on five approaches. They emphasize that CDC’s work will be rooted in sound science, bioethical principles, and local needs; that the primary modality for action will be through partnerships with other institutions; that CDC will engage in those areas that it has established expertise and capability; that long-term relationships with selected countries will be pursued due to the enhanced productivity of such sustained collaborations; and that CDC will assure that it has the workforce and administrative mechanisms required for the full implementation of this strategy.

A set of Priority Program Areas has been identified, based on federal commitments, major causes of the global burden of disease, the availability of effective interventions and CDC’s comparative advantages. These areas include agency-wide endeavors for surveillance, formation of partnerships, networking, and communications, among others. They also include specific conditions or groups of conditions for which different units within CDC have primary leadership. These include:

Emergency Response

Emerging Infectious Diseases

Vaccine Preventable Diseases

HIV/AIDS, STDs, and TB

Non-Vaccine Eradication and Elimination Programs

Reproductive Health

Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention

Tobacco-Use Prevention and Control

Micronutrient Malnutrition

Childhood Lead Poisoning

Toxic Substances and Hazardous Wastes

Occupational Safety and Health

Injury

Corresponding to these Priority Program Areas, a set of Anticipated Outcomes describes the results expected from full implementation of this strategy in the coming decade. Among the achievements, they envision 

  • Improved country surveillance systems for identifying critical public health problems


  • An expanded research capacity generating new knowledge for application to those problems


  • A broadened array of global partners with which CDC actively collaborates


  • Worldwide eradication of polio and Guinea worm, and regional elimination of measles and lymphatic filariasis


  • Improved immunization coverage and introduction of new childhood vaccines in many countries


  • Reduction of HIV infection rates in Africa


  • Improved TB cure rates through expanded use of directly observed therapy, short course (DOTS)


  • Successful prevention measures leading to reduced malaria infection rates and mortality


  • Health promotion programs functioning in the largest countries of the world adopting policies seeking to prevent tobacco use in youth

 This Global Health Strategy acknowledges the active role CDC must assume to protect the US population and to help fulfill US global health commitments. It also stresses the importance of working in collaboration with partner organizations and of forming new partnerships as needed. Despite the health challenges facing the world at present, CDC believes that the current environment offers important opportunities for making a lasting improvement in global health for the benefit of the United States and the world as a whole.

 


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This page last reviewed April 15, 2003

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Office of Global Health