IANPHI and the Coalition of Partners on Strengthening Public Health Services
The Coalition of Partners gathers decision-makers and experts from national public health services, international organizations and academia working to accelerate action to strengthen essential public health services and capacities throughout the World Health Organization European Region.
Over the last 25 years, the health of the people living in the WHO European Region has significantly improved. Sadly, these improvements have not been shared by all in these countries, and within these countries large health-related inequities still exist. Furthermore, the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa, Zika virus disease in the Americas, as well as climatological flooding in the European Region have all highlighted the deficiencies in the health systems' ability to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. Out of this need was the genesis of the Coalition of Partners.
The Coalition of Partners (CoP) gathers decision-makers and experts from national public health services, international organizations and academia working to accelerate action to strengthen essential public health services and capacities throughout the World Health Organization European Region (WHO Euro). Their primary focus is to improve the critical functions in public health services such as public health workforce, investing in public health, governance arrangements, and organization of public health services and public health legislation.
IANPHI is a well-identified partner for action within the CoP and was invited to participate in two Coalition of Partners meetings: Copenhagen, Denmark, January 30-31, 2017 and Helsinki, November 28-30, 2017. The focus of the November 2018 meeting was "How do we Collaborate Powerfully and Accelerate Targeted Action" where nearly 70 public health professionals from Europe, as well as various representatives the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), the European Public Health Association (EUPHA), EuroHealthNet, the European Commission, the World Health Organization were in attendance.
Working together for public health action
The CoP's aim is to improve the health and well-being of the WHO European region. Several National Public Health Institutes (NPHI) members of IANPHI are involved in the CoP. As a result of their partnership, IANPHI and WHO Euro have organized jointly a the WHO country offices, organized a leadership workshop for the Public Health Center of Ukraine in April 2017 and a technical seminar in April in Warsaw, Poland, which targeted four members of the WHO Euro region to discuss, "Establishing National Public Health Institutes Through Mergers."
The CoP meeting in November 2017 enabled all partners to present the progress of each project, strengthen their relations within a multidisciplinary team, envision new ways to collaborate, and identify the next steps toward productive and results-oriented partnerships.
For IANPHI, this was a valuable opportunity highlight the role and importance of NPHIs. During this meeting, IANPHI presented its Framework for NPHI Development, which includes the core attributes and functions of an NPHI, its Peer-to-Peer Evaluation tool, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and IANPHI's Staged Development Tool. Each tool presented is unique to the IANPHI network and provides a basis for assessing NPHIs and supporting their development.
Strategic partnerships and strategic public health goals lead to improved health
The goals of the CoP align with IANPHI's mission to strengthen national public health institutes. The combination of IANPHI members' expertise and tools will allow IANPHI to be another valuable partner to the CoP in providing support to countries that are developing and strengthening their NPHIs.
Learn more about the Coalition of Partners
Additional Resources