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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Johns Hopkins Wins $16 Million Award to Continue Integrated Health Project in UgandaThe Johns Hopkins School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) has won a $16 million dollar grant from the United States Agency for International Development to continue an integrated health project in Uganda. Other partners in the 3-year Delivery of Improved Services for Health (DISH II) project are Uganda's Ministry of Health, INTRAH of the University of North Carolina, Management Sciences for Health, and JHPIEGO, the Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Reproductive Health. JHU/CCP was a partner in the first stage of the program, DISH I, which began in 1995 and was managed by Pathfinder International. "Care for Others, Care for Yourself" is the slogan for the new project, which will continue to strengthen and expand the "one-stop" health services. These services enable clients to take care of many of their maternal, infant, and reproductive health needs and to get advice about AIDS prevention, nutrition, and breastfeeding. Health centers will display the now-familiar rainbow logo, introduced in 1997, that symbolizes integrated health services. The new project will increase coverage of children's health and provide long-term and permanent contraceptive methods, emergency contraception, emergency obstetric care, postabortion care, and adolescent reproductive health. The project design is built on the principle of integrated quality care through a sustainable decentralized program. These health services are crucial in a country that has been hit hard by the AIDS epidemic and where less than 20% of married women use contraception. For every 1,000 live births some 81 infants under age 1 die, compared with 7 in the United States. Life expectancy at birth is just 42 years—one of the shortest in Africa. Some 20% of women ages 15-19 give birth each year—one of the highest teenage birthrates in Africa. The JHU/CCP communication campaigns have had an impact. They helped to increase contraceptive prevalence from 12.6% in 1995 to 18.6% in 1997 and helped increase condom use among men from 7.8% to 11.8% over the same period. They also contributed to a 55% increase in the number of monthly client visits at 75 sentinel health facilities. (For more details, see Communication Impact! "Uganda Communication Campaigns Spur Integrated Health Programs," October 1999, Number 6) For its Uganda HIV Counseling and Testing Campaign, JHU/CCP was named a finalist in the 1999 Globals International Healthcare Communications Competition organized by The New York Festivals. The category was Social Commitment: Consumer Education/Public Service. For more information about DISH II or JHU/CCP's other work in Africa, please contact : Susan C. Krenn, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, 111 Market Place, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. Tel: 410 659-6300; Fax: 410 659-6266; E-mail: Skrenn@jhuccp.org. Web site: http://www.jhuccp.org. USAID administers the US foreign assistance program, providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide. |
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Under DISH I, JHU/CCP launched several communication campaigns to promote, complement, and reinforce efforts to train nurses and midwives to provide integrated services. These campaigns covered AIDS prevention for youth, family planning, the family health logo, maternal health, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV counseling and testing, and breastfeeding and nutrition. Other DISH partners train doctors and medical assistants in sexually transmitted disease and HIV prevention and treatment and also provide logistics and management information systems.
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