Funded Programs

Building Partnerships to Strengthen Interventions: Philani Project, South Africa

Emory College is collaborating with the Philani Nutrition and Development Project in Cape Town, South Africa and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Community Health & Global Center for Children and Families on a project designed to develop effective behavioral interventions to prevent the convergent epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and alcoholism in South Africa. The health and well-being of South Africa's children depend on effective interventions against the intersecting epidemics of alcoholism, HIV, TB, and malnutrition. South Africa is distinguished by having both the world's second highest number of persons living with HIV and the highest documented rate of children with fetal alcohol syndrome. In response to these significant health challenges, this global health partnership will unite innovative community-based health promotion practices, successful intervention strategies, and established biomarkers with the goals of helping researchers develop effective behavioral interventions to stem the spread of these convergent epidemics. Project researchers will first develop a protocol for collecting biomarkers during the conduct of a planned and funded randomized controlled trial that will evaluate the efficacy of a program for treating the intersecting epidemics in Cape Town. Researchers will then assess the feasibility of the biomarker protocol by integrating it into a pilot study for the randomized controlled trial.

For more information, contact:
Carol M. Worthman, PhD
Samual C. Dobbs Professor of Anthropology
Emory College
worthman@emory.edu