Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia

So a full three weeks in, here now, I want to spend some time andshare a bit more about the Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia (CNHDE), where I will be working these six months.    The CNHDE is a Project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and is involved in activities focusing on supporting the following:

• Implementation of the Health Extension Package (HEP)
• Achievement of Millennium Development Goals in Ethiopia
• Millennium Villages in Ethiopia
• Malaria Quick Impact Initiative

The Health Extension Program

A large part of the Center's work is to provide support for the HEP, government program that aims for universal coverage of primary health care. The program’s priorities are the prevention and control of communicable disease with active community participation, and the goal of providing equitable access to health services. To achieve this, roughly 15,000 health posts will be needed, and a total of about 30,000 HEWs will need to be deployed to the 15,000 villages (average population of 5,000 each) for a total coverage of over 12 million people throughout the country.  By 2007, a majority (94%) of villages had health post infrastructure specifically built for the provision of HEP.

With the cooperation of the Federal Ministry of Health, the CNHDE will also serve as an independent evaluator of the HEP and other health programs by engaging in the assessment of the progress of HEP implementation and related activities of the general health system.  Baseline survey data was captured in 2005 and 2007, with more recent and complete survey data now available from 2010.  It is survey data from these efforts that I will be working on during my time here. 

For more information, please visit: http://cnhde.ei.columbia.edu/