Emory's largest ever research grant

Emory received its largest ever research grant—$180 million awarded to the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance network (CHAMPS). Launched in 2015, CHAMPS collects and analyzes data to help identify the causes of child mortality in the places where it’s highest. This latest $180 million supplement brings the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s total investment in CHAMPS to $271 million.

“More than 5 million children die every year from mostly preventable causes, the overwhelming majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,” says Dr. Robert F. Breiman, professor of global health in the Hubert Department of Global Health, director of the Emory Global Health Institute, and principal investigator for CHAMPS. “CHAMPS relies on diverse partnerships with research institutes, universities, and health ministries in the countries where we work. The innovative surveillance and analysis being done by CHAMPS and its partners will catalyze evidence-driven interventions at the local, national, and global levels that we believe can save the lives of millions of children.”

CHAMPS has established sites in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and South Africa, and will add two more in the program’s next phase. CHAMPS partners with governments and national public health institutes to prepare to use CHAMPS findings to better understand and prevent specific causes of disease in children under age five. CHAMPS’ inclusive, open-access approach to data-sharing is designed to stimulate and incorporate creative new ideas to prevent child mortality.