Gazette
masthead
   About The Gazette Search Back Issues Contact Us    
The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University May 7, 2007 | Vol. 36 No. 33
 
CCP, Center for Global Health Lead Team in Award

By Susan Gossling Walters
School of Public Health

Jane Bertrand, director of the Center for Communication Programs, and Thomas Quinn, director of the Center for Global Health, have announced that Johns Hopkins has won a five-year award from the U.S. Agency for International Development for its Project SEARCH — Supporting Evaluation and Research to Combat HIV/AIDS.

The proposal submitted by CCP and the Center for Global Health brings together the expertise of more than 75 staff from the schools of Public Health, Medicine and Nursing and JHPIEGO and allows the team to be one of five awardees to bid on future task orders. USAID has projected the task orders could potentially reach $200 million.

Bertrand will serve as project director on the award, and CCP will manage it in collaboration with the Center for Global Health. The team's external partners are Marco International, Abt Associates and Social Sectors Development Strategies.

"This award shows the power of collaboration at Hopkins," Bertrand said. "By drawing from our many strengths and deep experience in global HIV/AIDS work, we offered a capability that is extraordinary."

Quinn said, "Project SEARCH provides a unique and important opportunity for Hopkins and its partners to contribute to programs in HIV prevention and care. The topics of potential evaluative studies are crucial in determining appropriate models of care and prevention so program funds are used to best advantage.

"These topics seem to be matched extraordinarily well with our capabilities," he said. "I am also particularly pleased that there is an interest in translating structured evaluations and research to policy, as this coincides with the goals of the center."

The pre-approval mechanism for future task orders provides a more efficient response to the short- and long-term needs of USAID missions overseas by establishing a competitive bidding process open only to the Project SEARCH awardees.

The goal of Project SEARCH is to carry out research and evaluation to improve coverage, quality and effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment programs worldwide. In addition, it will serve to strengthen local capacity in HIV/AIDS research and public health assessments through training and in-country collaborations.

Project SEARCH may be used for developing and evaluating models of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment programs; conducting public health evaluations to investigate effectiveness of interventions and translating results into public health guidelines; identifying and disseminating best practices to improve program efficiency and effectiveness; developing national and international standards and indicators for the purpose of program monitoring and evaluation; conducting analyses of clinical, community-level and population-based epidemiologic, demographic and surveillance data; testing program implementation models including research on practical applications of new technologies and intervention models in resource-poor settings; carrying out feasibility studies, community preparedness studies and policy analyses; and developing local capacity in applied research and ethical procedures by increasing technical skills of developing country investigators and providing technical assistance to in-country institutions.

The other groups receiving this award are Boston University, Family Health International, the Futures Group (with the University of Washington) and the Population Council.

Questions about this award may be directed to Cathy Church-Balin at CCP, cchurch@jhuccp.org.

GO TO MAY 7, 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
GO TO THE GAZETTE FRONT PAGE.


The Gazette | The Johns Hopkins University | Suite 540 | 901 S. Bond St. | Baltimore, MD 21231 | 443-287-9900 | gazette@jhu.edu