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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 |
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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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