Partnerships - Community Health and Program Services (CHAPS)

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CHAPS Partnerships

Community Health and Programs Services (CHAPS) is committed to promoting and maintaining traditional and nontraditional partnerships to maximize community health promotion impact.

CHAPS partners are engaged at four levels:

Networking to exchange information for mutual benefit.

Coordinating information and altering activities to achieve a common purpose.

Cooperating and sharing resources to reach complementary goals.

Collaborating to enhance the capacity to achieve like objectives.

The establishment of clear goals and objectives along with a shared definition of public health problems is a critical factor in the development of our partnerships.

Through meaningful collaborations, CHAPS has gained increased access to priority populations and developed connections with key stakeholders and change agents. Other outcomes include the extended reach into communities, and the expanded expertise of CHAPS, its partners, and the communities that are impacted by the partnerships. The list below highlights the many partners CHAPS successfully engages to accomplish its mission.

CHAPS works with the American Medical Association (AMA) to reduce disparities in health care and medical services and to help physicians provide to their patients detailed information on maintaining optimum health and changing unhealthy behaviors. The partnership with the AMA also supports physicians as they practice a greater professional role that extends to include a commitment to influence the many social, economic, and environmental factors that cause disease. Find out more about AMA's physician resources for eliminating health disparities.

Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ)

In an effort to reduce the high incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer in Zambia, the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia’s (CIDRZ) Cervical Cancer Prevention Program initiated a “See and Treat” intervention targeting HIV and non-HIV infected female patients who are at high risk for cervical cancer, and who visit the anti-retroviral clinics in Lusaka, Zambia. Since its inception in 2005, more than 10,000 women have been screened, nine new clinics have been established, three Zambian doctors and nine Zambian nurses have been trained, and ten peer educators have been hired as part of this innovative cervical cancer intervention.

A collaborative effort, led by a team of representatives from CHAPS worked with CIDRZ to enhance existing primary and secondary prevention activities related to cervical cancer among the women of Zambia. The partnership also includes representatives from numerous CDC divisions and offices, such as the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP), and the Office of Global Health. The Cervical Cancer Prevention Program’s “See and Treat” initiative has proven to be a successful approach. In the future, the partnership seeks to enhance existing activities and eventually replicate the program in other areas of Africa.

The Directors of Health Promotion and Education (DHPE) has an ongoing partnership with CHAPS to support core public health functions related to health promotion and public health education. Examples of partnership activities include the following:

The Worksite Health Promotion Initiative. This initiative provides employers and health agencies with information about the sources and effects of job stress on female, blue collar workers and offers recommendations for occupational and health promotion efforts in communities.
The DHPE/CDC Internship Program for Students of Minority-Serving Institutions. This program was established to strengthen the development of minority students by creating partnerships between historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic serving institutions and the public health community.
The Disparity Reducing Advances Project. This project seeks to identify the most promising technological, clinical, and public health advances for bringing health gains to poor and underserved populations in order to accelerate the development and implementation of these advances.

In 2007, the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) and
CHAPS partnered to implement a cooperative agreement through which a comprehensive global health promotion and health education program related to non-communicable disease prevention will be developed and carried out in various regions and settings. The purpose of the program is to strengthen the capacity of developing countries, prevent and control diseases through evidence-based health promotion strategies, and provide evidence-based knowledge and practical experience to communities in need. This coordinated effort addresses some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century and contributes to human development by improving quality of life and creating more equitable social and physical conditions for people across the globe.

CHAPS works closely with the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) to maintain and expand chronic disease health promotion programs and services. NACDD links chronic disease program directors in every state and U.S. territory and provides a national forum focused on reducing the impact of chronic diseases and their risk factors on states and communities nationwide. Some joint partnership activities include: The National Association of Chronic Disease Directors’ Conference and the Chronic Disease Indicators (CDI) Web site—a cross-cutting site that serves as a gateway to state-specific indicator data and data resources.

The Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE), the nation’s only independent professional organization dedicated to health education, has a lengthy history of collaborating with CDC in disease prevention and health promotion. Among the most recent SOPHE partnership efforts with CHAPS is in the area of eliminating health disparities.

In 2005, SOPHE and CHAPS organized a national summit “Disparities and Social Inequities: Framing a Transdisciplinary Research Agenda in Health Education.” The presentations and resulting consensus agenda for eliminating health disparities were published in SOPHE’s journals in 2006, featured in two national webinars,* and presented at public health conferences throughout the country. Additionally, a supplement of Health Promotion Practice was published in July 2006, featuring success stories and lessons learned from CDC’s Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program. SOPHE and REACH are now partnering in their first national collaborative meeting, “Partnerships to Achieve Health Equity,” October 31—November 3, 2007 in Alexandria, VA.

In an effort to address the burden of chronic disease throughout the nation, the CDC and the YMCA of the USA (Y-USA) have formed a cutting-edge partnership to further public health impact through the development and implementation of community-based strategies. The partnership strives to link CDC’s scientific and programmatic resources and technical expertise with YMCAs nationally to deploy the most promising, evidence-based community interventions to reduce the disease burden and improve people’s health. Community Health and Program Services (CHAPS) leads this collaborative endeavor to build community capacity, embrace community diversity, improve health-related quality of life, connect people and resources, prevent disease, and enhance public health impact.

*Links to non-Federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. Links do not constitute an endorsement of any organization by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at this link.